Friday, January 08, 2010

London Bridge is Burning Down!


We had a great time today simulating the Great Fire of London in 1666.  Each of the kids recreated a building which we put together to make a city (complete with rats running rampant) and then burned it down.  There were some great little details the kids included.  The fire supposedly started in the bakery (created by guess who?  Food Many John of course!).  We dropped a match stick head in there to simulate the coal that escaped from the bakery oven and then dropped a lit match. It wasn't long before the whole city was in flames since the buildings were all so close together.  We even had JT play the part of the Lord Mayor and exclaim, "Pish!  That fire could be put out by a woman!"  David's cooper's shop had a couple of barrels, the shipyard had caps to simulate the tar in the warehouse which supposedly exploded as it burned. That was fun to hear the little popping sounds as the caps were set off by the fire.  It only took maybe 2 minutes to burn completely to ashes.   

2 comments:

elizabeth said...

neat! very creative way to learn, memorable history!

thecurryseven said...

This is such a great idea...my boys would sooo love this. You win the fun mom award.

e