A Feast of Ancient Civilisations

A Feast of Ancient Civilisations

A feast fit for our Year 4 historians


In Year 4’s ‘Digging in the Dirt’ unit, they have been learning about ancient civilisations and how these have shaped our present societies. During the Primary Residential weeks, the classes who remained in school were treated to an interactive assembly based on four Ancient Civilisations: Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Africa and Mesopotamia. Students competed in classes to wrap each other up as Egyptian mummies and design Roman shields. They noticed how civilisations tended to develop near water as the soil was often more fertile for crop growth and the waterways could be used to travel and trade with other settlements.

Following the interactive assembly, Year 4 demonstrated their culinary skills and worked very hard to produce dishes from the same four areas of the world: Italy (Ancient Rome), Greece (Ancient Greece), Africa and the Middle East (Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq). The students were all highly motivated and engaged as they followed recipes to chop, mix and prepare the ingredients for their dishes. As collaborative and confident communicators, they worked well to produce a mix of delicious dishes to share across the classes in a wonderful feast. This activity was full of learning opportunities: following instructions, weighing and measuring, knife skills, washing up, learning how ingredients combine to produce something new and presentation. They also thought about how cuisines are different around the world, noting that there are some similarities, too. 

Year 4 students enjoyed the new dishes they tried and found cooking to be such a worthwhile and rewarding skill to learn. The recipes are all straightforward, so, if you’d like to have a go at cooking at home, the links are provided below. Happy Cooking! 

Tzatziki, Greek Salad, Houmous, Tabbouleh, Flatbread, Harira, Pizza (you can choose your own toppings. We used passata, shredded mozzarella, mushrooms, peppers, salami and onions), Pasta (a choice of recipes on this link; we used tinned tomatoes, peppers, garlic and onions with fusilli pasta plus basil, oregano and seasoning)

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