Activity List
Simply, this is a complete list of the activities on this site.
Previously, some activities were only on the SHP site but these now have a home on ThinkingHistory.
Overviews
Use your students to create a memorable timeline that will help them understand all kinds of issues of chronology (Added Jan 11) |
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Every war between 1066 and 1900 in one activity - creating links across KS3? |
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The Middle Ages to the present day - all in one graph for the 2008 KS3 PoS |
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A sorting activity helping students see why life changed so much during the Industrial Revolution |
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Use Top Trumps cards and the Rebellion Steps to help students see the really big picture |
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An introductory activity that will get students thinking and asking questions and will reinforce their chronological understanding |
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A grand overview, creating a physical timeline across the room and asking students to identify the big medical ideas of each era |
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A valuable revision activity for GCSE, telling the story of the germ! |
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A living graph that examines change, continuity and significance in the history of Public Health |
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Can your students find their ideal match and improve their knowledge of medicine through time? Flowers and chocolates optional! |
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Turn your students into War, Government etc to help them understand the concept of factors more effectively. |
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A group activity for comparing periods of history – good for KS2 and KS3 – good for A level synoptic understanding. |
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The only edible timeline in existence, guaranteed to stretch and develop students’ chronological understanding. |
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An end of year overview activity. Bring your own jelly and ice cream. |
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An overview activity for the end of KS3. |
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An overview activity for the end of KS3 that asks students to think about significance. |
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Using family history to create an overview of the 20th century |
Students can struggle to see the 20th century as a whole - can family stories help? |
How Uncle Frank can introduce and open up discussions on migration through history |
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When did Prime Ministers and Parliament become more powerful than the monarch? |
Complete the thematic story of monarchy with a graph showing when monarchs really lost power |
Pre 1066
Help your students gain independence, learn from each other and build up their knowledge of Egyptian Medicine. |
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Act out Egyptian ideas by turning your students into human anatomy |
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The simplest possible demonstration of the theory |
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Can your students find the cure for their ailments at the Asclepion? |
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Puzzle and intrigue! A mysterious way to help students sum up a topic, exemplified by Galen's work on medicine. |
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The body in the bog becomes the body in the classroom to build students' enquiry and source skills. Activity by Susan Edwards and Nichola Boughey. (Added January 10) |
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Turn you classroom into a physical map and tell the story of the Roman invasion |
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Load a legionary with his equipment and change pupils' thinking about the lives of Roman soldiers |
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Play the part of Paulinus and help pupils understand why empires were built |
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A timeline to develop a sense of duration |
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What’s in the picture? Find out and explore how the Romans saw themselves |
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Use your pupils as milecastles, turrets and forts to help them understand the Wall and, if they’re lucky, where their site-visit fits into the big Wall picture |
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A brief play that introduces Boudica’s rebellion – more Blue Peter than Pinter |
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A timeline to develop a sense of duration |
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Walk through the events and ask pupils to take the key decisions |
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Thinking skills for Medicine through Time – Creating Memory Frames |
Constructing memory frames on PowerPoint that summarise the key points, aiding memory and revision |
Create a physical timeline, using students to represent the periods and key developments in Ancient Medicine |
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Big Brother meets History of Medicine: Debating Significance |
Who was the most significant figure in Ancient Medicine? Was it really Hippocrates or would you chose someone else? |
Can your students spot the forgery? |
Normans
Battle of Hastings: Decisions on the Spur of the Moment? (Groan) |
Recreate the battle and help your students understand why the Normans won |
Create a map of England, walk your pupils through key decisions and see how their chronicles match up to the real thing. (Don't forget the hair dryer!) |
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Rebellions, castle-building, changes in land ownership, Danish invasions, the Harrying of the North and William getting angry in French – c'est magnifique |
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A physical, involving and very clear way into the nebulous business of assessing consequences. We're hanging out the consequences on a washing line! |
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Your chance to play William – can you pupils sort out your motives? |
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The Riccall Mystery – how do we carry out historical enquiries? |
Start with an imaginary excavation, finish by understanding vital ideas about enquiry. A lively and involving introduction to the process of historical enquiry. (Added Aug 09) |
Middle Ages
A physical but non-contact introduction to the murder of Thomas Becket (with card sort activity) |
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A hot-seating activity that can be used at KS3 or extended for use at A Level. RADA qualifications not required! |
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Can your students do better than King John or will they lose their crowns? |
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Your script for playing the part of Oswald and answering your student’s questions. Apple juice required! |
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A brief simulation demonstrating the impact of poor harvests on villagers. Also worth using as background to the Industrial Revolution. |
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Put your pupils into roles, find out who survives and explore the consequences of the Black Death |
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Hang out the effects of the Black Death on a change–continuity washing line |
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Will your decisions improve life for you and your family or lead to death as a rebel? |
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Put your students into role as villagers facing the aftermath of the Black Death, French attacks and Poll Taxes |
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Why was Simon Sudbury's head on a spike? |
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The Crusades, the Hundred Years War & Edward I’s British wars – all in one lesson |
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A role play – will your nobles depose the king? |
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A bundle for The Wars of the Roses at A Level – resources, additional activities and more |
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The Wars of the Roses Part 1: Rivalries and Alliances 1450 – 1455 |
An introduction to the events leading up to the first battle of St. Albans |
A brief activity enabling students to work out how feuds led to alliances and how these alliances determined the sides at the first battle of St. Albans. |
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A role–play introduction to the people and events for A level and above |
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Three brief activities exploring the pattern of events between 1455 and 1461 |
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A card-sort demonstrating how to use the Enquiry Process to help students study more independently and with more confidence. (Added Aug 09) |
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This brief role-play explores why Burgundy helped Edward IV in 1471. |
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How certain are we that Richard III murdered the Princes in the Tower? |
A two stage activity for KS3, firstly telling the story of 1483, then exploring the evidence for the fate of the Princes. |
An exploration of the 2012 finds in Leicester and what they do – and don’t – tell us. |
c.1500–1700
Create a living graph to show just how unlikely a king Henry Tudor really was |
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You play the part of Henry VII and your students are the nobles - how will they feel about bonds? |
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Turn your room into a map of Europe and chart Henry's road to glory – or failure |
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A role play that focusses on people and the importance of monasteries to communities |
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A timeline to develop a sense of duration |
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A map, a whiteboard, a camera – and enhanced understanding of Warbeck’s travels |
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Holy Box and the Altar Table – 16th century religious changes |
Create your own church interior – then change it, then change it again, then ... |
A role–play that brings people and decision–making off the page and helps students deepen their understanding. |
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Hats, false beards and an introduction to causation! |
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You'll need to move the furniture for this one – but it clearly, simply and painlessly explains the power situation in Europe in 1558. |
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Tell the story of the Armada by turning your pupils into ships and develop their understanding of causation and interpretations |
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Report the big news of 1559; simulate the work of Pare and Vesalius as they struggle to save Henri II; identify key aspects of Renaissance Medicine |
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Explore the reasons why Pare made his surgical breakthrough by creating a mobile factors web. |
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Using locality to introduce the Civil War – The Civil War in Leeds |
Your students become the people of Leeds in 1642. Will they survive the Civil War? An activity showing how to use your locality to inspire interest in the Civil War. |
Create a graph to tackle students' misconceptions about what Parliament wanted from the Civil War. |
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A role play for A Level students who take the roles of the leading villagers of Deerhurst, dealing with the pressures put on them by Royalists and Parliamentarians |
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A timeline to develop a sense of duration |
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Bring the accused to court to tell their stories. Can the rest of the class predict who will receive the death penalty? Why was the legal system so unpredictable? |
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What's it about? That would be telling. Better click here and find out! |
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Would you become a highwayman? Explaining the causes of crime |
Turn your students into causes and get the rest of the class to sort out the rise and fall of highway robbery. Sadly, no masks or horses required. |
Use a tin of tomatoes to help students understand Harvey's discovery |
c.1700–1900
When did Prime Ministers and Parliament become more powerful than the monarch? |
Complete the thematic story of monarchy with a graph showing when monarchs really lost power |
Why was 18th century smuggling so profitable, and so accepted? |
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Recreate the journey times before and after turnpikes and revolutionise understanding |
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Why did Prime Ministers become more powerful than the monarch c.1780-1830? |
A quick card sort to summarise the reasons for change in royal power |
Find the connections and show how one invention led to another and transformed the textile industry |
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A sorting activity helping students see why life changed so much during the Industrial Revolution – Note, this activity is also included above, in Overviews |
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A role play that’s simply not fair – but very good for learning |
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Liven up the railway revolution with a trip from Stockton to Darlington |
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Test your acting skills and get your students researching Chartism with renewed interest and purpose |
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Find out how Andy Harmsworth provides his students with an engaging and memorable introduction to a series of lessons on the development of surgery (Bring your own saw!). |
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Explore the difficulties Lister must have had in using the carbolic spray and perhaps discover why he faced so much opposition. Activity by Ian Luff. |
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A timeline to develop a sense of duration |
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Making the Industrial Revolution human through family history |
How great-grandfather Seth opens up key features of the Industrial Revolution |
An outline idea for helping students understand how revolutionary the Industrial Revolution was |
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How did the Industrial Revolution change where people lived? |
The Population Revolution 1750-1901: Use the space in your classroom to map out the change from rural to urban life |
Who's got the answer to the problem? The story of the Industrial Revolution |
An overview activity introducing a wide range of developments from 1750-1900 – a positive view of the Industrial Revolution! |
1900 & After
This activity explains simply, but powerfully, why Salvarsan was effective, but risky. Activity by Ian Luff |
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Turn your classroom into a map of Europe to help students deepen their understanding of the outbreak of World War One. Activity created by Megan Underwood (added August 09) |
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Created by Megan Underwood, this activity shows Y9 pupils why trenches were such effective defensive structures (added December 09) |
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Walk your students through the map of Europe and make your decisions - then discover the grim reality |
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Arm wrestle your way to understanding the German army’s reaction to defeat |
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A role-play, by Mick Long, to develop students’ understandings of the political situation in Russia in 1921. |
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Sally Burnham demonstrates how these complex events can be readily assimilated. Chocolate biscuits an essential resource! |
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Help your A Level students get to grips with all those Weimar acronyms |
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Can your students buy a bar of chocolate before their money runs out? |
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Ian Luff explains how to introduce students to Hitler’s rise to power and then build in complexity. Added Dec. 09 |
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An active overview of key events that creates more complex explanations |
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Make the Depression personal and enhance students' understanding |
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Turn a difficult topic into an enjoyable, effective and inspirational lesson |
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Were the politicians of the 1930s really blunderers? |
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An active overview that’s challenging, enjoyable and effective |
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Hot water? electricity? What was new when you were growing up? |
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Using family history to create an overview of the 20th century |
Students can struggle to see the 20th century as a whole - can family stories help? |
Getting personal with wars – family starters for investigating the start of World War Two |
I don't know why my Dad joined up in 1939. What possibilities can you suggest? |
How did Hitler's forces reach the Channel? What was special about their tactics and what did the Allied defences get wrong? |
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Simulate the rival qualities of Spitfires and Messerschmitts and give your students more fire power in their explanations |
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How safe were air raid shelters for the poor in Britain's cities? |
Ian Luff demonstrates the weaknesses of air–raid shelters and provides a documentary activity exploring the destruction of one shelter in London. (Added December 09) |
Turn your class into bomb aimers to discover how difficult their task was - and why civilians were so at risk in bombing raids. (Added December 09) |
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A really good overview activity that helps students to see the patterns in all those events. |
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Julia Huber introduces her use of dilemmas for motivating students and improving their decision-making. |
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An ‘engaging’ activity devised by Christina Pascoe to develop students’ understanding of the ‘ideal woman’ Nazi Germany – on the SHP website. |
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Recreate the tensions of the search for Viet Cong to help students understand why the US army couldn’t win |
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Will students risk trying to cross the Berlin Wall? |
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How powerful was an atomic bomb compared with other weapons? All you need is an egg - and some egg-proofing! (Added December 09) |
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A gloriously simple way to make your students’ understanding far more sophisticated |
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Your chance to fiddle the votes and improve your students’ understanding |
Non-Period
Turn you pupils into a timeline and accelerate their understanding of vital chronological terms |
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Create a timeline showing why interpretations change |
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Simple techniques for developing a key aspect of chronological understanding |
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Help your A level students remember who was who |
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Ever confused Mary Tudor and Mary, Queen of Scots? A simple way of disentangling the Marys and many other confusing people. |
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Get your next A level topic off to a demanding start by turning your class into the royal council, the cabinet or the Politburo. |
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A simple, simulated excavation to capture pupils’ imagination and stimulate their thinking. |
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A motivating and fun way to start a topic – all the way from KS2 to A level |
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Demonstrate how we use clues to reconstruct the past. A shattering experience for all! |
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A gloriously simple idea for use from KS2 to A level, as a lesson starter or to conclude a whole Key Stage |
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The Riccall Mystery – how do we carry out historical enquiries? |
Start with an imaginary excavation, finish by understanding vital ideas about enquiry. A lively and involving introduction to the process of historical enquiry (Added Aug 09) |
This PowerPoint sequence can be used before a new enquiry to remind students of the process. |
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Create a timeline of your family's generations to travel back in time to … |
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How Uncle Frank can introduce and open up discussions on migration through history |
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Personal memories as stimulus for creating or summarising a sense of period |
Using your own memories to model the key features of any period |
Injecting personal experiences into GCSE Medicine through time |
Can individuals’ modern experiences help guide students through the ‘factors’ to understand how much medicine has changed? |
Puzzle and intrigue! A mysterious way to help students sum up a topic, exemplified by Galen's work on medicine and by the Norman Conquest. |
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How to use Granny to develop a sense of duration as far back as the Romans. |
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Why was Simon Sudbury's head on a spike? |
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Borrow the idea of a well-known children’s game to revise knowledge of individuals. |
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An effective if unusual way of helping students improve essay structure. |
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Rachel March explains how she’s been using a second-hand mannequin in her lessons. |