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Yr 5 RS Trip – Seeking the Maharajah, Ancient House Museum, Thetord

All the children in Year 5 have recently visited the Ancient House Museum in Thetford as part of the work they are doing in Religious Studies learning about Sikhism.  They took part in a ‘Seeking the Maharajah’ day, which focused on Maharajah Duleep Singh who lived at Elveden Hall just outside Thetford.  This is what some of the children thought of their trip:

The trip there was really fun.  We chatted and we played games some of us even went to sleep!  We left at about 9.00 the journey took about 40 minutes but to me it felt like 1 hour. The coach had two floors. The people who get sick went on the bottom and the people that do not get sick went up on the top floor. James Hewett

When we finally finished the journey to Thetford we had a short walk, on the way we passed a statue of a soldier in Dad's Army, after we looked at the statue we crossed the road and arrived at the Ancient House Museum.

We had lunch in a park it was very pretty with red, yellow and orange flowers surrounding the park.  We had beautiful weather but there was a shaded part to eat your lunch.  We drank lots of water and we finished our lunch of ham or cheese rolls a packet of crisps and some raisins and water.  As we walked back to the museum we passed lavender and it smelled lovely.  

After we left the museum and walked across a bridge to see a big statue of Duleep Singh.  After we had circled the statue and discussed it we walked back to the coach and drove back to school.  I enjoyed the day out because it was fun to find out what Duleep Singh did in his life and what happened to him when he grew up it was also fascinating and interesting.  All in all it was a great day out! Swetha Venu

The Sikh man told us about the three things that we should do.  The first was do not smoke or take drugs, the second was to care for the poor and the third was to remember God with every breath.  The man had the second longest beard in the world, it was over six foot long.  John Mackintosh

The Sikh activity was very interesting I learnt this new phrase which remembers God in every breath; the chant goes like this waheguru, waheguru, waheguru.  He showed us that Sikhs never ever cut their hair! He took off his turban and his hair and beard went down to the floor.  He said the kirpan is only used for defence not ever to be used for attack and he carries it under his tunic and no one would see it there.  Gus Stephens

On our Sikh trip we ground up spices like cinnamon.  Then we rolled some dough to make chapattis. I really enjoyed it because it reminded me of India.  Everybody got different spices it was really fun.  George Pollack

We went to a newly opened part of the museum, the man told us to look around the  room and find out information about Maharajah Duleep Singh.  The exhibition had so many bits of information about him as a boy.  We also found out about the Kohinoor Diamond, someone said that if you got five stones, threw one north then another east, another west, another south and one as far as you can throw up and fill the space with jewels and gold then the Kohinoor Diamond would still cost way more!  We saw some of his clothes, pictures of Elveden Hall and learnt about his relationships with the royal family.  I liked this activity because it was really interesting!  Harriet Watts

I really enjoyed the kitchen artefacts session because we learned where things would have been found in Elveden Hall.  We had a go at finding out and identifying everything on the table, there was a fox trap, a rabbit trap and even a man trap for poachers!  There was an old fashioned baby bottle and a milk carrier for the milk maid to carry milk in. Nathan Sharpe