We spent just a week on this unit. I thought it would be interesting to approach it from its historical evolution which would, in turn, take us across the globe.
We began with learning about Rupert's Land in Canada, the Hudson's Bay Trading Company, the 13 Colonies in North America, the Caribbean, piracy, and the slave trade
We spent a day learning about the slave trade. We looked at our Catholic faith and discussed the Beatitudes, the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, the Deadly sins, Acts of Love etc and we applied them to the slave trade. The kiddies learnt how the trade went against everything in our faith. They made anti-slavery posters based on these key parts of our faith which I thought was an interesting and important take on why we should behave a certain way, why we must learn from history and why we must learn our history!
We studied the arrival of the Mayflower in 1620
And the arrival of James Cook in Australia in 1770, and Aboriginal Dreamtime.
We also looked at Victoria's reign during the Empire, India which was considered to be the Jewel of the Crown, the Scramble for Africa, our role with the port of Hong Kong, battles with the Netherlands for countires in South East Asia,
the Suez Canal, New Zealand and a badly written treaty with/for the Maori, and the troubles between Pakistan, India and Bangladesh after the British left.
Monarchs of the Britsih Empire
The remaining countries are now part of the Commonwealth.
Looking for Commonwealth coins in our foreign coin collection.
