The Year 7 Motte and Bailey project - update

[pointedlynoresolutions]

Well, today was C-day. The castle cake is complete, photos are on my profile. DD and two of her friends worked on this all day and it includes all the elements that were asked for - and it's edible!

It was fun, but I don't want to do it again any time soon.

how can i see your profile? Doesn't seem to be one there! Sounds a fab cake!

This is weird - I can't click on myself any more! Let me tinker a bit...

OK, so it's lost my profile... Weird.

OK, so I hadn't linked my profile to this NN. Anyone up for trying if it works now?

It's brilliant
Who gets to eat it?

I'm bringing it in to the school along with paper plates, am not expecting any of it to come back.

oh fab!

That is wonderful! Well done to your DD and friends!!

That's awesome! I used to teach history (a million years ago) and getting the kids to make a motte and bailey castle was a homework I used to set. No-one ever made a cake though.

I think teachers who set this kind of homework should have to personally sit with my children and do it for them.

Yours is nice though.

Joan that's pretty much how I felt when I heard about it, but according to MN wisdom this is more or less a national tradition in Yr7, so I went with it. It was a lot more fun than kitchen roll tubes, paper mache and all the other usual stuff that they've done a million times before, and it has to be said that the problem solving elements of dealing with fondant/maintaining cake stability when going high up/making the materials work for them was a really useful lesson. As was the teamwork aspect.

I have no idea what to do if/when DD2 gets this set in 2 years time, I mean - how do we top this???

Whatever it is, it'll be unusual. I can't be doing with ordinary. I'm having thoughts about ice sculptures now...

Careful - all your dd's teachers may end up setting similar homework! Famous French landmarks, or represent Pythagoras theorem in an interesting way, or maybe a 3d Globe Theatre for drama!

Jelly Eiffel Tower, anyone?

Brilliant and yummy! she will win the class prize for sure!
My DS took his in today, looks good but I'm not sure it will survive rush hour on LondonUnderground....

That is amazing. Did they win or was it not a compo?

It's not a competition, Garnier but it is a project that will count towards their final mark in History for the year. I think it will score very well, aside from the creative side of it, it also meets all the criteria for things that had to be included.

They're also likely to get quite a few house points for it, they asker the teacher if it was OK to do it this way and he was very keen. One girl in DD's class kept saying 'it wasn't allowed' but she'd handed hers in already so there may have been a little envy involved there...

Year 7 at our school have to do a 3d representation of a riverbed in for geography in any medium they like and some usually do a cake. One girl's was baked at the same time as her family roast and tasted of chicken...it looked fab, though!

Dcs have had to make a volcano when they were year 7.
Ds was a papier mache affair that lit up. Had a switch and everything.
Dd was made out of plastacine.

I think a cake is sort of a natural choice for a riverbed, I'd probably go for that. And actually the volcano too. The way our oven behaves, we would not even have to change the shape that much, unlike for the castle...

Rude of me: the castle was awesome!!!

Not rude at all, books - it's been a bit of an eye-opener to learn how many more of these things might potentially come our way. We need a 'The Scream' emoticon to convey our dismay properly .

The compliment is appreciated!