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The Lesson
Whole Class Teaching
If children have completed their own inventory of a room in their house,
select one or two as examples.
Q Where would we see inventories today?
Children might suggest in rented or holiday accommodation.
Explain to the children that they will be looking at some household inventories
from the Tudor period. When a man died a record was made of his goods
and chattels with their value in the same way as estates are valued today
for death duties.
Display the inventory that can be found at http://www.peartree12.freeserve.co.uk/invent.html
Point out the copy of the original inventory on the right hand side of
the website.
Scroll down and read that this is the inventory of Clement Swallow, a
gentleman from Warwickshire, who died in 1571. With the children, read
through the first four or five items and help the children decipher the
Tudor spellings.
Item certayne Rynges (Certain rings)
Item viii kyne and heighfers wth iiii calves (8 cows/cattle and heifers
with 4 calves)
Item iiii yonge bestes (4 young beasts)
Item ii Geldynges wth saddells brydells etc. (2 geldings with saddles
and bridles)
Item wood & coale (Wood and coal)
Item the swyne yonge & olde (swine/pigs young and old)
Explain to the children that they are now going to have a few minutes
to try to decipher 4 or 5 lines each. Allocate 4 or 5 lines to pairs of
children and ask the children to record the main items. (More than one
pair can work on the same lines.) Send the children to the computers and
ask them to open the URL from the previously saved favourite.
Children report back, pointing out the words on the website that they
have been able to decipher.
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Main Activity
Explain to the children that they will use the Tudor inventory to produce
an estate agent's particulars for this house.
Q What rooms do we think Clement Swallow had in his house?
Children might suggest a parlour, kitchen, great chamber (master bedroom),
inner chamber, study etc.
Q What other buildings are mentioned in his inventory?
A brewing house, milk house, mill house, fish house, storehouse and other
outhouses. It would be useful if the teacher records the rooms on a flip
chart for children to use later in their estate agent's particulars. It
is up to the teacher to decide whether the children should use the spellings
from the original inventory or modern equivalents.
Q What sort of person do you think he was?
Children might suggest that he was a wealthy country gentleman.
Teacher now opens and displays the word document Estate_agents.doc and
familiarises the children with the different sections. Explain that the
children are going to use this model to create their own version of an
estate agent's particulars based on Clement Swallow's inventory. Tell
the children that the photograph can be added only when they have completed
the other particulars.
You may need to remind/teach children how to maximise and minimise in
order to alternate between the website and the word document.
Children may need to use their previous knowledge about Tudor houses to
complete an imaginary description of the property and its position in
the town e.g. near the stocks.
Once the children have finished their text they may use the URL http://www.snaithprimary.eril.net/sailor2.htm
to copy and paste a line drawing of a Tudor house to complete their estate
agent's particulars. Remind children of the need to give credit to the
source of their image. Double click on the text in the footer, "Image
taken from…" and replace with the above URL or other source.
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Plenary
Draw the children back together and display 2 or 3 of the completed particulars.
Focus on the two sections describing household items, both indoor and
outside rather than the imaginary sections.
Q Which additional items could be added to either of these sections?
Open and display the image Tudor_family.jpg
(Close the window when you have finished with the image) which shows
a poor family carrying all of their possessions.
Q What would this family's inventory include?
Why use ICT
Why use ICT:
Demonstrating: During the introduction the teacher is demonstrating
how to access the information. This provides a focus for the decoding
activity, far better than children accessing paper copies of the inventory.
Accessing and analysing: The Internet gives access to Tudor inventories
which have often been omitted from this unit in the past as they were
not readily accessible. It gives the whole class access to the information
simultaneously. This use of the Internet provides children with an image
of an original inventory as well as a transcription in a child friendly
version; original inventories are virtually impossible for young children
to decipher.
Presenting, re-presenting and communicating: ICT provides children
with the opportunity to draft and redraft their work easily and efficiently.
The finished product will be of a much higher quality than might otherwise
be possible. High quality graphic images can lead to improved motivation.
The use of the ready-made estate agent's template saves time so that children
can focus on the historical objectives of the lesson rather than spending
time creating their document from scratch.
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