History is a powerful inspiration and is incredibly useful for teaching other disciplines—feeding directly into children’s wider experiences and providing extra cultural capital. Crossovers between history, Design & Technology (D&T), cooking, and performance are among the most effective teaching tools available to primary schools.
Recreating the Games of the Past
One of the most successful activities we undertake on a Portals to the Past workshop day is playing historical board games. I am convinced that as soon as people were people, they created board games! We see them in every era, across nations and across seas.
It is a brilliant activity for pupils to recreate these games using simple, accessible materials. The rules can be researched easily or remembered directly from a workshop. For instance, Three Men’s Morris can be drawn onto card, perhaps decorated with a paper mosaic, while the counters are crafted from air-drying clay. Children engage deeply with the strategy of the game, love the process of making their own set, and feel a real sense of achievement when taking it home to share with parents.
What Did the Past Taste Like?
Schools sometimes provide food to pupils during experience days to give them a literal taste of what ancient life was like—for example, trying Greek olive oil or feta. This is an excellent approach and certainly shouldn’t stop with Ancient Greece!
Stone Age flatbread was regularly eaten during the Mesolithic period and made from simple ground grains. Meanwhile, the Romans were famous for their puls (a thick grain porridge) which kept their legions marching across the empire. If you want to try something a bit more adventurous, you could attempt medieval peas pottage, or even pull off a hat-trick of disciplines—combining RE, History, and Cooking—by baking an Ember Tart!
Bringing the Drama into the Classroom
As part of my workshops, I always use drama. It brings myths and history to life when pupils see their classmates pretending to be Zeus, Beowulf, Thor, or a legendary monster.
Drama and performance are exciting ways to teach, and they make ideal material for school assemblies or end-of-term performances where pupils’ confidence and subject knowledge can really shine. Audience participation encourages the children on stage and reflects a far more dynamic age—an Anglo-Saxon mead hall was a rowdy, interactive place, quite unlike a quiet modern theatre audience! When I tell a Thor story, the children are encouraged to chant his name when he triumphs against the odds, shout encouragement, and share in his theatrical woes. Drama is engaging, exciting, and helps develop crucial interpersonal skills like empathy and shared joy.
A Springboard for Practical Learning
While history is a vital subject in its own right, it lends itself so reliably to other disciplines. What does the past taste like? What does it feel like to move a clay counter around a game board you made yourself, just like a Roman child who couldn’t simply order a toy off Amazon? At Portals to the Past, we are proud to act as springboards for further learning, helping teachers deliver rich, cross-curricular cultural enrichment.