On Wednesday 28th August, the Year 4 students went on an excursion to the Polly Woodside to connect to our Inquiry topics around History for Term 3. Here are a few of the students’ experiences from the day: 

“I loved the Polly Woodside because I thought that experiencing what it was like to be on the ship back then was really cool! And the fact that everything looked so old and dirty made the ship look alive. I loved learning about it too because we learnt about things like how risky it was to live on it and all the hard work the people did on it” (Teebel)

“I loved the Polly Woodside because the ship had many cool and wonderful things, like that it was a cargo ship and needed 20 people to sail it. It was so cool how we got to see how life was like living on a ship in the olden days, and also how much work the sailors had to do all the dangerous things they had to do just to keep the ship going and clean” (Isabel)

“I really loved the Polly Woodside because it was really cool and fun. We got to see what it looks like and where they put the cargo and we got to see where they went to the toilet. We had to scrub the deck and we saw where the captain sleeps and the cook and the navigator. Then we saw where the workers sleep. We got to ring the bell on the ship and go to the museum. We went in this tunnel and it felt like a moving ship. It was really cool. There were mini Polly Woodside ships and we got to steer the wheel of the ship. I was paired with Tahlia” (Natasha)

“When we were on the ship, we were doing jobs that the sailors did. Our first job was to steer the wheel at the back of the ship. I was paired up with Jocelyne and when we were steering the wheel it was easy. I did all the steering but anyway next we had solved a secret word it said “Polly woodside rocks”. Then after a while we were scrubbing the deck and we got to cheer up the other team while they were scrubbing the deck on their side. The two first mate’s Addi and Lize showed us where the cargo sailors would like sleep for a bit and make food. In fact they would only sleep on their breaks then they would work and they would share the workload. At the end we saw where the cargo was stored. We also saw an optical illusion and it was when people are sea sick. When we had our lunch we saw some black swans and then we went on the bus and went back to school” (Brighty)

“Once grade 4 got to Polly Woodside we hopped on the ship and we went to the back of the ship. Once we got there we had to steer the wheel. My partner was Nakira. We had to ring the bell and then we saw where they went to the toilet. Then we saw where they stored the cargo, where the captain, navigator, cook, ships boy and the rest of the 16 people slept. We saw the captain’s quarters. We also had to scrub the deck. When we sat down to eat our lunch two big black swans came for a snack of our food but we did not let them. Then we got on the bus and went back to school” (Caleb)