School life in the past: art lessons

Studying photographs of schools, classrooms and pupils from the 1940s onwards, children re-create an art lesson from the 1950s. What would granny have thought?

Teaching Outcomes
To investigate, and order chronologically, images of schools and classrooms from different eras.
To create a painting using art materials from the 1940s.

Children will:

• Explore images and accounts of school life in the past and create a timeline
• Experiment with art materials used in schools in the past

• Images of current classrooms, schools and equipment
• Images of classrooms across the 20th and 21st centuries
• Images of art lessons in the 1940s

• Powder paint
• Poor quality paper
• Glass jars and paint brushes

Children at school in the 1940s from schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org