Objectives: Recognise some features of kings and queens; produce a group representation of Henry VIII; describe Henry VIII.
National Curriculum: Recall some details about a famous person; describe an interpretation of a famous person; know that a person can be represented in different ways.
Resources required: Pictures of Queen Elizabeth II; pictures of some of the homes of the queen; large pieces of paper [a roll of wallpaper is useful]; activity sheet 1.
Teaching Activities: Introduction: talk to the children about kings and queens. How do we recognise a king or queen? Has anyone seen Queen Elizabeth II or pictures of her? How do you know she is the queen? Show the children a picture of the queen wearing her crown. Who is this? Does she look like a queen? Why? Ask the children to offer words to describe what she looks like, the clothes she is wearing.
What do kings and queens do? What sort of things did Henry VIII like to do? What was life like for him?
Where does the queen live? Show pictures of some of the homes of the queen. What kind of homes did Henry VIII live in?
Activity: Children work in groups.
Draw round one child. Tell the children they are going to make this into a representation of Henry VIII. They have to decide what needs to be put onto the drawing. Place all representations onto the classroom wall. Children write words and draw pictures that they place around and on the representation describing what Henry VIII looked like, what he liked to do and the kind of places he lived in.
Some children use this these words and pictures to help them write their own description of Henry VIII.
Plenary: Look at the different pictures groups have produced. Each group describes their picture. Teacher leads the discussion to compare the representations. What do they notice? What is the same? What is different? Why are there some differences? Make sure children understand that pictures of the same person can be different.
