Rotten Roman Soldier Day

We had lots of fun doing a variety of activities whilst collecting as many denarii as possible. The day started with a Roman soldier lottery. The children had to choose a letter which would become their Roman name. Did you know that names ending in the suffix -us were male and -a were female. We had lots of names such as Julius, Julia, Claudius and Claudia. The children were also given a ranking in the army, ask them what they were!

We learnt about Roman mosaics and designed our own shields using the traditional colours: red,gold,black and silver. 

The children's Roman numeral knowledge was put to the test in a maths challenge. They had to solve problems using lolly sticks to make different numerals.

No Roman Soldier day would be complete without putting the children through their paces with training. Roman soldiers would have had to carry their heavy kit and armour during 20 mile marches. These would have had to be completed in less than 5 hours. To replicate this, the children had to carry heavy bags around the playground whilst marching and following orders – in Latin!

Another activity saw the children learning about the weapons soldiers would have used when growing their empire. The children built catapults and enjoyed putting them to the test in a catapult competition. One of our favourite parts of soldier training was learning to throw the pilum (spear). Watch out Mrs Woods!

We all had the best day and lots of fun whilst learning about life in the Roman Army. 

We are now looking forward to starting our Geography topic after half term. We hope you all had a good week. See you Monday!

The Year 4 team