Families Archives - Page 2 of 2 - The National Archives

Welcome to the Time Travel Club’s activities for Arts Award: Discover at Home’ allowing families to engage with the archive and the arts during the pandemic. The National Archives is an Arts Award centre. Discover at Home offers a foundation in understanding different types of art:

https://learn.artsaward.org.uk/discover-at-home

Arts Award is a nationally recognised qualification which encourages young people to ‘deepen their engagement with the arts [and] build creative and leadership skills’.

The Time Travel Club have created special resources to support ‘Discover at Home’. You can complete the activities and submit your work to us to achieve a certificate, or you can use the resources to structure creative activities at home without the need for a certificate.

The resource theme is ‘Architecture as art’. Using images of real archive documents, you’ll learn about the history of famous buildings including Hampton Court Palace and the Natural History Museum. You’ll explore documents about St Paul’s Cathedral and Sir Christopher Wren, the architect who designed the iconic building. As well as this, you’ll meet an artist who will show you how you can create your own buildings made of recycled materials!

Discover at Home is made up of three main areas of activity:
1. ‘Discover’ – learning about how documents in The National Archives can tell us about famous buildings and architects (16th and 23rd February)
2. ‘Find out’ – learn about an artist today and create your own built environment/buildings (2nd March)
3. ‘Share’ – reflecting on what you have learned (9th March).

You can record your answers in the weekly worksheets which have space for answering questions, drawing, or adding in photos of you completing the activities. You may even like to print out the pictures of the archive documents too!

These activities will be released every Tuesday from 16th February to 9th March. ‘Architecture as art’ will stay open for one month after this, until 18th April, for you to finish your work and send a copy into us via email. We will email you a certificate to celebrate your work!

We hope that you enjoy learning about the history of architecture using unique archive documents. You can contact timetravelclub@nationalarchives.gov.uk should you have any questions.

Festive Fare beyond Compare!

There are many delicious foods that we associate with Christmas day dinner! It’s lovely to sit around the table with your family and good friends, to tuck into Christmas favourites like roast turkey, crispy roast potatoes and crunchy green sprouts. Or maybe not the sprouts for everyone?! Then there’s pudding, with a choice of mince pies dolloped with thick cream, or a slice of Christmas cake or perhaps a lovely, huge portion of Christmas pudding! Whatever we like to eat on Christmas Day, one thing is for certain, food plays a central role in our celebrations. Inside the collection at The National Archives there are hundreds of documents that can tell us about the food eaten at Christmas, from Tudor times through to the twentieth century. These documents include adverts for Christmas food, recipes and even photographs of some of this festive fare! Below are a selection of a few of our favourite documents relating to food at Christmas in the past.

See what you can find out about Christmas food from looking at these documents and answering the questions. Then, if you’d like to get crafty and creative, take a look at some of our ideas for making food inspired Christmas decorations or even have a go at baking our medieval recipe for mince pies!

One of the most popular things to do at Christmas is to send festive cards to friends and family. It is a great opportunity to take some time composing a handwritten message full of seasonal cheer, best wishes and news on what you’ve been up to.

In The National Archives’ collection there are many examples of Christmas cards. There are designs which were made for mass manufacture as well as poignant reminders of how people communicated during the First World War. The National Archives’ has a unique connection to the tradition of sending cards too. Henry Cole, a lawyer who worked for the government in the Victorian period and helped established the beginnings of The National Archives in 1838, introduced the first Christmas cards for sale in 1843.

Below are a selection of card designs including an amusing card sent to a furry resident of government! Explore the documents and answer the questions. Afterwards, there is a craft activity to complete so that you can share the joy of sending cards.

Welcome to the Time Travel Club’s special Christmas page. Here you will find lots of festive fun to join in with. From Tots storytelling to Christmas Craft Club, as well as weekly themed document activities, there is sure to be something for you to enjoy. You can participate with your friends, family or by yourself!

Check back each week to discover new things to do!

Please share your Christmas creations with us on Twitter @UKNatArcEdu or via email at timetravelclub@nationalarchives.gov.uk

Welcome to the first ever episodes of Tots storytelling online. Today, you’ll be visiting an amazing Wonderland with some familiar characters, as well as learning more about the real documents which we keep at The National Archives.