Samuel Pepys and the Great Fire of London (KS1)
Lesson Plan
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Please note: this resource was created prior to the 2014 National Curriculum.
This was originally part of a 7-week unit looking at the Great plague of London, the Great Fire of London, and Samuel Pepys as a famous person.
The children had posed their own questions about the fire; we had told the story of the fire from Samuel Pepys' perspective; the children role-played trying to put out the fire with hooks, squirters and buckets of water; and they examined pictures of said equipment and of London before and during the fire.
Here we take the investigation further, through:
- reading genuine historical sources, pictorial and written;
- debating causation;
- and sequencing.
The children communicate their understandings through structured writing, individually and in groups.
Note that you need to download resources A and B. Resources B contains pictures of Pepys and the Fire.
Teaching methods
Skills to help children develop in this lesson:
- Speaking, listening, discussion and debate - Oracy
- Reading documents
- Children writing
- Learning about time
- The visual image
- Story-telling
See Primary teaching methods
See also Cross-curricular learning
Attached files:
- Pepys and the Great Fire of London Teacher Notes
19.9 KB PDF document - Pepys and the Great Fire of London Resource A
7.4 KB PDF document - Pepys and the Great Fire of London Resource B
594.4 KB PDF document - Pepys and the Great Fire of London Pupils Work
476.2 KB PDF document