Launton School reporting . . .

Today some Year 4 children are talking to us about their recent trip to Waddesdon Manor.

We have been learning about Greek Myths and on 18 June we had a trip to WaddesdonManor. We travelled on a coach, leaving school at 9am.When we got to the manor, the coach driver dropped us off by the large fountain and we walked to the house and went inside using the staff entrance. There were two people to show us around and explain some of thing we could see in the house. There were another two people who were there to help us with activities when we went into the learning room.

In the first corridor we saw lots of shovels on the walls. Each shovel had a name engraved on it. This meant that the person whose name was on the shovel had planted a tree at the Manor. We saw shovels labelled for Queen Victoria - the handle of this shovel was covered in red ribbon - Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of Edinburgh, and King Charles III.

As well as the shovels in the house, we also looked at some paintings. One in particular was Hercules Received into Olympus by Jacob de Wit (painted in 1725). We each had a booklet, and we had to identify some of the figures in the painting, with the help of the two guides. Some of the figures we could name were Hermes- who was the god of several things, including trade and wealth; Zeus- god of the sky; Eros - god of love; the Three Fates - goddesses of destiny; and Demeter goddess of agriculture, fertility and the harvest. We could also identify Hera, Aries and Athena.We knew about some of these figures because of our topic at school.

Outside we saw several statues, one was of Proserpine being dragged to the underworld by Pluto.We learned that Proserpine was allowed to be in our world for six months and then had to be in the underworld for six months. When Proserpine is in our world it is spring and summer and when she is in the underworld it is autumn and winter. Another statue we looked at was of Hercules fighting the Nemean Lion.

We spent a lot of time in the gardens where there was plenty of nature to see: flowers, birds, bees and butterflies. We saw the grave of Baron Ferdinand’s poodle, Poupon.The head stone is on Ash Tree Walk. He was the Baron’s favourite dog.

After a picnic lunch we went to the learning room where we decorated small terracotta pots. We could choose what to paint, some of us painted figures from Greek Mythology, others painted Greek style patterns, and some of us painted the bird that is the mascot of the Manor, Mimi the Mynah.

We really enjoyed our trip to the Manor and would like to go back. Our favourite bit was decorating the pots, and we enjoyed looking at all the statues.

Mollie, Fleur, Darcey, Layla and Luca - Year 4

Here are some pictures from our visit.