Year 3-4 Visit to Darwin House and
Dr Johnson Museum.

As part of our History topic on Local Famous People, we went to Lichfield to find out more about two of our local celebrities.

At Darwin House, we met ‘Dr. Erasmus Darwin’ and had an opportunity to ask him some questions. Then he took some of us into the cellar to show us how he used to dissect bodies so that he could learn more about them and become a better doctor. We met ‘Fred’ and dissected him ourselves so that we could learn about his vital organs.

Some of us learned about ‘Darwin the Scientist’ as we were digging up fossils, identifying them and putting them into time order. We had a really good time being palaeontologists!

The rest of us learned about ‘Darwin the Inventor’. We learned about some of his inventions and had a try at inventing ourselves! We made a spider which would mysteriously move across a table…all with the help of magnets.

During the second half of the day, we visited Dr. Johnson’s House and learned about how he grew up in his father’s bookshop and tried teaching in a local school, before he left for London, seeking fame and fortune. We discovered his rules for writing the first English Dictionary saw the two volumes of his enormous book. We played some alphabet games and had a try at writing our own mini-dictionary.

The day was really interesting and full of fun activities. We really learned a lot which was helpful when we returned to school to do our follow up work.

We would like to say a big thank you to Alison and Graeme, who organised and ran the activities at both sites and we would also like to thank the PTA, who subsidised this trip to make it more affordable for everyone.