Friday 9 May 2014

Fun Times at the Money Museum!


Where does money come from?

"When we were at the money museum we learned that shells were first used as money. They were used in Africa and they were very rare. Looking at the shells was very interesting because they were beautiful. The shells have a faded green splodge on top and the rest was white with a slit in the middle that was jagged. The shells are called Cowrie shells but sadly the beautiful shells' value decreased after the British brought millions of shells into Africa from the Maldives.

We loved the money museum."
by Olivia and Gulliver

This is a Cowrie shell from the Maldives
Can you guess how many shells are in this bag?
Once upon a time you would only need 10 shells for
a cow. Once the value of shells decreased
we learned that you would need 10 bags (250 in
each bag)


Shell money beads
This string of beads is 9m long and was used in the Solomon Islands. They would cut the shells with a drill and place them in the fire. People would wear them to show how wealthy they were.





This is a Tevau from Santa Cruz in the Solomon Islands. It was made from feathers and bark and would be wound up round a central cylinder.


Can you guess what this is?
This is a Chinese tea brick which was used as money in China, Mongolia and Tibet.

Finally, these were the earliest signs of using metal as money.





















Making Coins

"In the olden days they didn't have a machine which makes coins like we have now so they had to make the coins themselves. To make them they get a block of wood and put their coin into the device used to stamp them. Then they place another metal cylinder over the top and hit it with a hammer once. "

by Martha and Abi




 We got to look at lots of different coins. Some were hundreds of years old.

They told us that back in the olden days they used to carry around lumps of metal before they decided to use coins instead.



Back in King David's time there were 240 pennies in 1 pound. That's because 240 pennies weighed 1 pound. 


Pennies back then were worth more that they are today, Nowadays we can't buy very much at all with a penny. 










This gold coin was used in 1603 in a united Scotland and England. 

Making Notes

"When we went to the money museum we learnt all about the security of notes. Firstly we compared old notes to modern ones and there was quite a difference. Then we got to make our own notes and pull all the security on it. The first stage was to write a difficult signature on the top. Next we put the date on and a special number and a code. None of the codes are the same and they are written on the note twice. Afterwards we got a stamp that doesn't have any colour but prints a symbol. Then we did something fun which was writing in an invisible pen that you can only see if you use ultra violet light. Finally we added a sparkly sticker."

A few facts:
You used to get hanged for copying notes.
Notes are made out of cotton and if you shine them up to the light you see Sir Walter Scott on a piece of pattered paper.
We had a fascinating time at the security section."

by Isla and Rose





This is a note from the olden days and a note from today.

Can you spot the similarities and differences?








 





Susie had to blow up this £20 so that we could see all of the tiny little details that you wouldn't normally see.




Overall, A great time had by all!


Tuesday 6 May 2014

Engineers in the Making!

Last week in P4A we thought we would try our hand at a bit of construction. . . only this type of construction involved spaghetti and marshmallows!

The task: to work together to build the strongest tower possible using only dry spaghetti and marshmallows. 

We had a couple of interesting towers in the end but which do you think won the challenge?







 (we won!)