History · Year 2

Active learning ideas

Shopping and Food

Let's take a trip down memory lane to the bustling high streets of yesterday! Before we had giant supermarkets, how did people buy their food for the week?

• National Curriculum Attainment Targets
• National Curriculum in England: History Programmes of Study: Key Stage 1

• 20–45 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 3 activities

Activity 01

• Stations Rotation
• 45 min · Small Groups

High Street Role-Play

Set up different shop fronts in the classroom for a butcher, baker, and greengrocer. Pupils use shopping lists and play money to visit each shop, interacting with the 'shopkeeper' to buy specific items.

Identify three types of shops you would find on a high street in the past.

Facilitation Tip

Provide props like wicker baskets, paper bags, and aprons to enhance the immersive experience.

What to look for

During the 'Shopping Basket Sort' activity, observe pupils' reasoning for placing pictures in 'Then' or 'Now' categories and listen to their discussions.

• Remember
• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

Activity 02

• Stations Rotation
• 20 min · Pairs

Shopping Basket Sort

Provide pupils with pictures of shops (e.g., a supermarket aisle, a baker's counter) and food items (e.g., a plastic-wrapped chicken, bread in a paper bag). In pairs, they sort these into 'Then' and 'Now' categories on a large sheet of paper.

Explain why people went to different shops for different foods.

Facilitation Tip

Use a large Venn diagram made from hoops on the floor to discuss items that might fit into both categories.

What to look for

Pupils draw a picture of a high street from the past. They must include and label at least three different types of shops and show one item that could be bought in each.

• Remember
• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

Activity 03

• Stations Rotation
• 30 min · Individual

Grandparent Interview

For a homework task, pupils use a simple, structured questionnaire to interview an older family member about their memories of food shopping. They can ask about their favourite shops, what they bought, and how they carried it home.

Compare a weekly shop today with how a family shopped 70 years ago.

Facilitation Tip

Prepare the children by role-playing the interview process in class first to build their confidence.

What to look for

Pupils complete a 'Know, Wonder, Learned' (KWL) chart at the beginning and end of the topic to reflect on their own learning journey.

• Remember
• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

A few notes on teaching this unit

Begin by grounding the learning in the pupils' own experiences of a supermarket. Use a rich variety of sources, such as old photographs, archive film clips, and artefacts, to draw direct comparisons. Role-play is a vital tool for this age group, so create an interactive high street in the classroom to allow them to experience the past in a hands-on way.

By the end of this topic, your pupils will be able to describe the traditional shops of the past and explain the key differences between shopping then and now.

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Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• All food has always been available all year round, just like in the supermarket today.

  In the past, most fruit and vegetables were seasonal. For example, you could only buy strawberries in the summer. Supermarkets now fly food in from all over the world, which is why we can get them in winter.

• People in the past just went to one big shop to get everything.

  Supermarkets are a newer invention. Before they existed, people had to go to many different, smaller shops for their food: a butcher for meat, a baker for bread, and a greengrocer for fruit and vegetables.

• Shopping was always done using a car and plastic bags.

  Fewer families owned cars 70 years ago, so most people walked to their local shops. They carried their shopping home in reusable baskets or string bags, as items were often wrapped in paper, not plastic.

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Methods used in this brief

• Stations Rotation