1. Inventions that changed the world – Spring 2013
Topic and Learning Intention
History
LI: Can I find out about the main
inventions, in particular the 20th
Century?
Targets
Know about the main inventions of
the past
Be able to give some reasons for
particular events and changes
Be able to gather information from
simple sources
Activities
Discussion – When was the 20th Century? Remind children of centuries, how long they are and the fact
that the number of the century is 1 more than the year e.g. the 20 th century is 1900 - 1999
Discussion –What inventions could you not live with today? Collate a class list.
Activity
Children to use the netbooks to investigate the origins of the items that they use daily in their lives.
Focus to be inventions during the last 100 years and to find out:
Who was the inventor?
When it was invented?
Why it was invented?
How it was made?
Children to use structured sheet to remind them of what they are investigating and to help them record
the information correctly.
Guided Group: Work with children who will be unable to access the netbooks. Use one netbook as your
main netbook and ask the children to work as a team to naviagate the internet and research only one
invention.
N.B. This lesson could be completed during an ICT session.
History
Activity
LI: Can I understand how people
used to communicate?
Tell the children that you have banned pencils and pens but you still need them to work. Give children
access to early writing tools; these can be collected by the teacher or by the class, across the road in
Sherwood park.
Mind map some ways that the children could complete their work today.
Task – Children to find a way to record and communicate to others a variety of messages. Messages to

2. Inventions that changed the world – Spring 2013
be given to each group in secret. Children to guess what each group’s message is. Children to choose
what materials they would like to communicate with.
Children to discuss the issues that arose during the task, could they communicate precisely? Did they
always communicate with letters from the alphabet?
Children to return to the classroom and discuss how people communicated.
When was the alphabet invented? 1700-1500BC by Semitic people from the Eastern Mediterranean
How were books circulated before printers? Educated monks.
How did people communicate before the invention of the alphabet? Drawings.
What materials did people use? Watered clay, blood, tapestries, indian ink.
History
LI: Can I understand how inventions
changed the way we live?
Introduction – Children to be introduced to the idea of the Golden age of Invention. This is between the
8th and 13th Centuries. This lesson can be done as a research lesson, however, 2 research lessons in 1
week may be quite pressing for this year group.
Learning – Follow the IWB and introduce the children to each invention
Know about the main inventions of
the past
Know about the lives of people in
the past and the technology they
had access to
Be able to give some reasons for
particular events and changes
Be able to gather information from
simple sources
Be able to use their knowledge and
understanding to answer simple
questions about the past and about
changes
Activity – Children to decide which invention they think is the most important invention. Children to
then explore what their world would be like without this invention. Children to complete a comic strip
activity. The page is laid out like a comic strip, however, the pictures do not need to flow, but are
helpful to structure and section pictures. Children to contemplate different scenarios without this
invention. “What the world would be like without…”
Plenary – Drama – Children to work on an improvised piece of work. Think about the drama we have
down with Alex. Children to be introduced into the story to explore scenarios then “whooshed” out of
the acting area.
E.g. If the world did not have hospitals, people would be really scared if they cut their finger… (child to
over react) they would not have doctors to help them in case it got infected.

3. Inventions that changed the world – Spring 2013
Understand that the past can be
considered in terms of different
time periods
Understand that the past has been
recorded in a variety of different
ways
If the world did not have spectacles, then when you got old and your eyesight got worse, you wouldn’t
be able to read (child acts trying to do activities without reading)