In our Literacy sessions this week, we have been reading and recording information from non-fiction texts about the Victorians. Understanding the meaning of texts is a key skill and it is important that we are able to extract the main points from what we read. This connects with one of our learning objectives. To develop these skills, read this paragraph about children at work in Victorian Britain and record the main points in no more than one sentence.
If this paragraph is too challenging, click here for a shorter one on slum children.
If you need an extension, click here to read about life for the poor (the top two paragraphs).
Post your sentences as a comment below. I look forward to reading them!
In Victorian times lots of children died when they where babies and it was easy to tell who was rich and who was poor. Also poor children looked thin and hungry.
Well, I learnt that in Victorian times many women who had children died because of childbirth. Also, I learnt that Queen Victoria had 9 children: Edward, Alfred, Arthur, Leopold, Victoria, Alice, Helena, Louise and Beatrice and they were models for other families.
In the Victorian times, there was a big difference between the poor and rich people. The poor children had no shoes and very little clothes; the rich children wore grand clothes and, unlike the poor children, they got to go to school.
Maximilian
Many Victorian children were poor and had to work to help their families, people thought work was good for children, as the Industrial Revolution created new jobs (in factories and mines) many of them were completed by children as they were cheap to employ (a few pennies for a week’s work).
It was easy to tell the difference between rich and poor people in Victorian times; rich people dressed well, whereas poor people were skinny and tired, it was also much easier for poor people to catch a disease!
In Victorian times – when most families had at least 10 children- a lot of the children sadly died of diseases like smallpox and diphtheria because of working in factories and workhouses.
BY RUBY
I learnt that in Victorian times, as a woman, it was hard to stay alive as many women had lots of babies and child-bearing became very dangerous.
I learnt that most mothers would die because of childbirth, and a clear example was in Oliver Twist when his mother died during childbirth and most of the children become orphans and had to work in an uncaring workhouse.
It was easy to tell who was rich and who was poor. Rich people were educated, looked smart, and they may have even been a bit chubby because they grand feasts to eat. Poor people weren’t educated, wore ragged clothes, and they were really thin, after all they didn’t have a lot of food to eat. Also they couldn’t go school so they had to work hard if they wanted money.
There was a big difference between the rich and the poor, most children had to help their families by working and earning money. Many people thought working was good for children, so the Industrial Revelation made new jobs mainly completed by children like mining and factory work.
Poor children had no toys as their parents could not afford them, all they had to play with was an alleyway and some friends. If you were rich you had an average amount of rooms in your house of 20. Many Victorian houses are still standing and people live in them, like I do.
Families in Victorian times had lots of children with both the rich children (with their warm clothes, shoes and schooling) dying from the same diseases that poor children who had to work (who wore ragged clothes and were always hungry) died of – like Smallpox and Diphtheria.
In the Victorian times lots of women died during child birth, there was nothing to prevent women from having a lot of babies and many young children died of disease.
Women found it very hard to give birth. If the women survived the child would probably die.
Queen Victoria had 9 children , she was a role model to other parents but it not that easy in those days some people would die from it.
I learned that women often had to sacrifice their life to give birth, just like in Oliver Twist when the mum died.
I learnt that in Victorian times giving birth was a dangerous thing because most of the time the baby died of a diseases like smallpox, and sometimes the mother died as well.
I learnt that many poor children lived in city slums, and because there was not much money for toys they had to play with anything they could find – like paddling in a stream or climbing trees and lampposts.
I learnt that in Victorian times, in both rich and poor families, many children died when they were babies or caught serious diseases like smallpox and diphtheria.
I learnt that in the Victorian times, most of the poor children lived in slums or cottages and had to find some things to play with because they had no toys to play with.
I learnt that poor children lived in the slums and many of them didn’t go to school and I think that is cruel. I also learnt that rich people had all the best luxuries and some rich people used it for their advantage.
That’s an interesting opinion Nana Yaa, could you give further information about how rich people used their luxury items for their advantage? Can you cite your source of evidence as well?