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On Site Activities

These activities can be varied according to your local site.

Pupils can approach the wall wearing their helmets/armlets and marching. 

The site today

Briefly help children understand what they are looking at. See if they can spot the ditch or any other features. Help them understand that there used to be buildings and a high wall, but that they are very old and have rotted away. Look around – what things would the Romans have seen? What things would not have been here? (e.g. roads, houses)

Building the wall

The leader could go into role as a Roman commander and give pupils instructions on the various stages of building the wall. Pupils could act out breaking up stones, cutting turf, laying turfs on top of each other to create the rampart, building the fort and then watching out.

In the fort

Mark out a boundary of a ‘fort’, using ropes, cones or other markers. Gather the children within it and sit down if it’s dry. Tell the pupils that there were lots of forts along the wall and that there weren’t any telephones. They had to send messages to each other, carried by runners. 

Play this variation on the singing game I sent a letter to my love, using a stick as a letter.

I sent a letter to the fort and on the way I dropped it.

Someone must have picked it up and put it in their pocket.

Archaeologists

Explain that the Romans left a lot of things behind them, and that we can find some of them today. Hide commercially supplied replica items under a rug or leaves. Children can take it in turns to ‘discover’ items and discuss what they are.