☰ Floating Classroom Trip

Floating Classroom Trip

Posted on: November 14th 2014 | Category: Year 5, Year 6

Form 5/6 Trip - Find out what the children learnt on the canal!

I learnt all about the history of the canal and the controls on a boat. The facts were fascinating. First we set off and were shown a map of the canal and we were told we were going to go through London zoo. Then we were all given the picture of the island in the middle of the water and were set the task to spot it. We did and went back inside and talked for a bit.

A little bit later we had to figure out how the Victorians got under the tunnels without their horses. We figured it out and the answer was that two men would jump on the boat with a wooden plank and their shoes had long metal studs. Then they would lie on the plank and push along. The marks were still there and we thought how hard it would be to walk on the sides of a tunnel for a non-stop fifteen minutes.
Our teacher (David) asked us if the water was clean. We all replied saying no. So he went to a tube like thing that reached to the water and pulled out a glass of clean water. We were also told that coal, petrol like liquids and gunpowder was carried on the canal (bad idea!) 
As we came to a bridge David told us the pillars were the wrong way round and he explained why. There were five boats going down the canal and they were carrying explosive liquids and gunpowder. It was cold and the skipper on the first boat was freezing. He took out his pipe and lit it. About 30 seconds later a strong wind blew a spark onto the gunpowder. BOOM! The bridge collapsed on the half of the boat that had not yet sunk and killed the skipper. It would have taken about five years to rebuild now. But because the river was the only supply of materials to travel it took five days.
 
Finally we got to Camden and the locks. We learnt how locks worked and we went out and then turned around to go back up. Then we had lunch. On our way back we played a game where you had to get as much coal to London. We learnt that horse pulled carriages carried the least amount of coal and slowest, next the boat and the fastest and the one that carried the most was a train. Not long after that our informative trip was over.

By Jack O

 

We went on a canal boat which was redesigned as a floating classroom in Little Venice in Camden. It was going to be a science trip but the teacher was absent, so it became a history trip. We got lucky because the weather was really nice.
 
At first on the floating classroom we went to the outside bit on the boat. With pictures we had to guess which buildings were new and which buildings were in the picture. We did another activity where the man gave us a bag and we had to smell inside the little tubes and guess what they were and put them next to their picture. One of them was sawdust, another was cow poo, another lemon.
 

We passed London zoo and sometimes we would go outside on the boat and observe what we were passing. We passed an old bridge where they put the pillars backwards accidentally.
 
We had lunch inside the classroom after we went in the lock, then we turned around and headed back. While we headed back we played a board game where some of us were horse and carriages, some trains, and some of us were boats.
 
The man told us a story about the bridge with the pillars and how it blew up. We went back to Little Venice and stepped off the boat. It was a fun trip!

By Alice D

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