After the excitement of our assembly today, we came back to class and learned a little bit more about the Great Fire of London!
Whilst we already know about Samuel Pepys, who he was and why he was so important, today we learned more about his diary and how it helps us to understand more about what happened during the Fire. To start off our lesson, we defined what we mean by a primary source of information. We found out that this means that it was written, or created, at the time that the event actually happened. We know that Samuel Pepys saw the events of the Great Fire of London and wrote about it in his personal diary, which we have been able to study more than 400 years on. We know that Samuel Pepys had actually been writing a diary for around 8 years before the fire, and that he wrote about the Plague and the Coronation of King Charles II (NOT King Charles III, our current king, that would be strange).
As a class, we read through a section of his diary where he spoke about finding out about the fire from the Lieutenant of the Tower (of London) and the way in which people reacted to the fire. We then had to find out about the people that were mentioned, as well as the buildings and streets that Samuel Pepys spoke about. We were also looking out for any interesting words, such as quench or even lieutenant. To extend our learning and understanding further, we answered questions about how people reacted and why poor people may have stayed in their houses until the fire touched them. We learned that people rushed to the river with their belongings, to try and escape with their boats. We thought that poor people may have had less possessions so may not have worried about this as much as others! We know that this is tricky to know as Samuel Pepys doesn’t explicitly say why poor people acted in this way, but it’s definitely interesting to think about!
Well done for all of your fantastic work, Year 2, and well done again for such an amazing assembly. I am very proud of you!
What did you learn in our history lesson?
I remember this lesson like it was yesterday. I really enjoyed learning about the Great Fire of London and Samuel Pepys diary. I am sure you all had a very interesting lesson with Miss Forster Adams.
I really enjoyed this lessons and I hope we can do it again. One thing I learnt is that Samuel Pepys diary is a primary source that is used today.
The great fire of London is a great subject and so fun to learn about. It has a lot of tiny details and their are a lot of fun lessons and was my favourite subject in year2.
You are really smart! I still even remember that lesson it was so fun.
This topic we have been learning about The Great Fire of London I have been too
Buking pales and once on a trip I saw Big Ben
It is fun in year two! We have been learning about THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON!