School and Group Visits at Bucks County Museum
and Roald Dahl Children’s Gallery
Workshop Curriculum Links
Tudor Pomanders and Tussie Mussies: Year 1
Workshop Outline
(All timings are approximate)
10 minutes: introduction
The Learning Team will explain how Tudor medicine was different to ours – that as the Tudors couldn’t see germs,
they though people got ill because of bad smells. How did they protect themselves from bad smells? But making
themselves smell nice! We will work through what the Tudor poor would do, through to what the super-rich would do.
20 minutes: the poor and their Tussie Mussies
After showing how a Tudor serving girl would dress, the children will all make their own Tussie Mussies – small
lavender bags. They slip stich around a circle of felt to make a simple drawstring pouch they fill with lavender, which
they can wear around their necks
20 minutes - the reasonably well off and their jewellery pomanders
After showing how a reasonably rich Tudor Man would dress, the children will make a style of pomanders that
involved making balls of wax and rolling them in sweet smelling spices. These get turned into beads they thread onto
some ribbon.
30 minutes - the super-rich and their fruit pomanders
After seeing how a rich Tudor lady would dress, the children then make the most extravagant pomanders by sticking
whole cloves into small oranges.
10 minutes - collecting in work and tidying away resources
All of the children’s work is given to the lead teacher at the end of the workshop. We find it is less likely things get
damaged or lost this way! As the children complete their work, it gets put in a small bag they have put their name on.
Curriculum Links
 English: Spoken Language
 Listen and respond appropriately to adults and their peers
 Ask relevant questions to extend their understanding and knowledge
 Use relevant strategies to build their vocabulary
 Articulate and justify answers, arguments and opinions
 Give well-structured descriptions, explanations and narratives for different purposes, including for expressing
feelings
 Maintain attention and participate actively in collaborative conversations, staying on topic and initiating and
responding to comments
 Use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring
ideas
 Speak audibly and fluently with an increasing command of Standard English
 Participate in discussions, presentations, performances, role play, improvisations and debates
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Art and Design
To use a range of materials creatively to design and make products
To use drawing to develop and share their ideas, experiences and imagination
To develop a wide range of art
Design techniques in using colour, pattern, texture, line, shape, form and space
 History
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Developing an awareness of the past, using common words and phrases relating to the passing of time
Know where the people and events they study fit within a chronological framework and identify similarities and
differences between ways of life in different periods.