Past lessons

What lessons did children do in the past?

Learning intention – We are learning about the life in the past.

Success criteria – We can state three ways past school lessons are different to present school lessons. We can state two ways they are similar.

Students used a set of readers to practise reading. Readers had lessons about the world.

Students had to read aloud in front of the whole class.

The readers had spelling words. Students had to learn their spelling words for homework.

The first Australian readers came from Ireland.

Nellie's first picnicYouTube | NSW Schoolhouse Museum of Public Education (1:39min) | Transcript

First Australian readersYouTube | NSW Schoolhouse Museum of Public Education (1:42min) | Transcript

In the past, neat handwriting was very important.

Students practised handwriting in a copy book.

The first writing at school was called Copperplate. Today it is Foundation.

Students had to remember all their school work. This was called rote learning.

Students had to know all their tables off by heart.

The teacher tested the students. Students got in trouble for wrong answers.

Arithmetic lessons are now called maths lessons.

Chanting 3x tablesYouTube | NSW Schoolhouse Museum of Public Education (0:54min) | Transcript

The activity sheets open as a Preview. Select Template to save a copy onto your Google Drive.

The aim is for students to step back in time so it is suggested these sheets be printed to be completed by hand.

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