Topic plan: Romans (KS1)

Romans

A topic-based plan by Sue Nicholls, offering six weeks of activities across the KS1 curriculum to integrate Song Bank songs with everyday classroom delivery.

This theme provides practitioners with the most exciting historical topic: the Romans’ extraordinarily well-disciplined soldiers, their glorious architecture, a host of gods and goddesses to worship, their passion for bathing and their sophisticated technology! Sing Up has worked with the education team at the Roman Baths in Bath to produce a batch of Singalong Songs to celebrate this famous spa, so there’s plenty of Sing Up material to integrate into your Roman topic.

Salve!

Speaking and Listening, History

• Try the Roman rap from the Sing Up School Trip Singalong collection to launch your topic. It has a changing third line so you can accommodate any questions that arise when introducing the theme to your class.

• Use a Speaking and Listening session to talk the children about the Roman occupation and find out what they already know, and, more importantly, what they would like to know! Collect their questions and substitute them for the third line in each verse. Although the Singalong rap was written to focus on the Roman baths, its repetitive lyrics and simple structure allow different questions to be inserted. Here’s an example of how children can create their own lyrics to the rap:
  
  What do we want to know?
  What do we want to know?
  When did they come to Brit-ain?
  That’s what we want to know!

• Other questions might be: What did the Romans look like? What did the Romans eat? Did the Romans wear armour? What did they use for money? With some creative syllable crunching, practitioners will be able to accommodate almost all questions.
  
  

Roman Roads

History, Geography, Science

• Having introduced your topic, focus on the Roman roads, which were technically advanced and well-built and can easily be identified on modern maps. Sing the new lyrics of Ode to a Roman Road to the familiar tune of ‘Knees Up, Mother Brown’:
  
  Build a Roman road
  Build a Roman road
  Clear the ground of trees and boulders
  Build a Roman road
  
  Build a Roman road
  Build a Roman road
  Big stones for the bottom layer
  Build a Roman road
  
  Build a Roman road…
  Next add stones, cement and sand to
  Build a Roman road
  
  Build a Roman road…
  More cement with broken tiles and
  Build a Roman road
  
  Build a Roman road…
  Paving stones to make the surface
  Build a Roman road
  
  Build a Roman road…
  Kerb stones placed along the sides
  We’ve built a Roman road

• If possible find similar materials like those listed in the song and encourage the children to try and replicate the Roman road layers. You might want to omit cement and substitute air-drying clay instead.

• Use a blank map of Britain and ask the children to research the location of some famous Roman roads such as Ermine Street, Fosse Way or Watling Street.
  
  

Warring Romans

History, English, Art and Design, ICT, Science

• Perform the rap below, Romans on the March, all about Roman soldiers, their superb fighting skills and their famous resilience and discipline. It uses authentic Latin names: a pilum is a javelin and a gladius is a sword (from which we have ‘gladiators’). The rap is divided between three groups so once the piece is familiar, try layering the three chants together for an interesting texture! If possible, add actions, percussion and hand claps where indicated (*). Chant at a steady unhurried pace to keep everyone together.
  
  Group 1:
  Roman soldiers marching,
  Left, right, left right,
  All day long they’re marching,
  Make their camp at night
  
  Group 2:
  Footsteps * *
  Keep in time * *
  Straight roads * *
  March in line * *
  
  Group 3:
  Pilum and gladius
  Shield on your back
  A cloak and a helmet
  And a very heavy pack!
  
  Group 1: Chanted while marching on the spot with a drum or tambour playing on the pulse
  
  Group 2: Chanted with hand claps indicated by asterisks
  
  Group 3: Chanted with actions signifying the items in Roman Soldiers’ kit

• Children seem to revel in Roman soldiery, especially the weapons: even the Latin names are embraced with enthusiasm! Use books and ICT software to research lots of facts about soldiers, not forgetting the brilliant ‘tortoise’ manoeuvre using their curved shields. Try to convey the weight that a soldier had to carry; it was approximately 30 kg (similar to the weight carried by a contemporary soldier), by loading a volunteer with the equivalent weight in bags of sugar or flour.
  
  

Hail Minerva!

Art and Design

• Introduce the famous Roman Baths with a Song Bank Singlong number called Here’s to the Romans. It recounts many facts about the Romans’ love of bathing and makes reference to the goddess Silus-Minerva, to whom they dedicated a temple. Use this song as a springboard to stimulate Art and Design.

• Look at the bronze head of the goddess Silus-Minerva and model the goddess’ head in clay. Begin with an egg-shaped clay ball joined firmly to a clay neck. Make two thumb dents for the eye sockets, emphasising the eyebrow bone, and insert rolled clay eyeballs – this technique makes a marked difference in creating a realistic face. Build a nose and fashion lips and spend time on the hair style. Hair is particularly satisfying to tackle in this medium!
  
  

Other ‘Romans’ songs in the Song Bank include:

• Latin Lingo (KS2 but worth exploring)

• We have been to Aquae Sulis

• Researching the Romans