Rich and Poor Tudors - The Complete Series (7 lessons)

With lesson plans, slides, differentiated worksheets, activity ideas, picture cards, board games, question cards and so much more, you will find a wealth of teaching resources within these Rich and Poor Tudors lessons to make teaching this fascinating and fun-filled scheme of work easy!

The first lesson in this series starts by challenging your class to think about what they already know about the Tudors, before looking at placing the Tudors on a timeline of British history. They will learn how the Tudors came to power before being introduced to the Tudor monarchs.

During their independent learning time, they will then be challenged to arrange timeline cards to show a chronological overview of the Tudor period. There is also the option of challenging children to consider whether famous historical events and inventions occurred before, during or after the Tudor period.

In this lesson, children will learn that the Tudors believed your position in life was determined by God, in a system known as the Great Chain of Being. They will learn about the social structure of Tudor society from the very richest to the very poorest, and learn that moving up the social scale was extremely unlikely.

Your class can demonstrate their understanding of Tudor society in a number of ways, including by answering questions in a crossword puzzle, drawing a diagram or discussing and comparing character profiles.

This lesson explores food for both rich and poor Tudors, exploring what kinds of foods were eaten by both groups and what their diets were like. Children will consider how mealtimes might have been different for rich and poor Tudors and assess whether they think rich or poor Tudors had a healthier diet.

During their independent activities, children can either play a true or false game with the information they have learnt about rich and poor Tudor food, or follow a recipe to make a simple Tudor dish.

During the teaching input of this lesson, children will explore photographs of Tudor houses and reconstructions to start to get an idea of what Tudor homes were like for both rich and poor Tudors. They'll consider what creature comforts we have today that wouldn't have been available to any Tudors, whether rich or poor, and what it would have been like to live in a Tudor house.

As well as looking at the exterior and interior of Tudor houses, there is also the opportunity to study some Tudor inventories to see what Tudors left behind when they died. Children will read these primary sources and establish whether they think the inventory belonged to a rich or a poor Tudor.

This lesson starts by showing children portraits of rich Tudors and challenges children to think about how the clothes these Tudors are wearing differ from the clothes we wear today. It then goes on to explore the Sumptuary Laws, which dictated what Tudors were and weren't allowed to wear depending on their station in life. As children explore these laws, which dictated everything from the fabric to the colour, they will consider why these laws were put in place and enforced so strongly.

During their independent learning activities, they can then design their own outfit for a particular Tudor using what they have learnt about the Sumptuary Laws. There is also the option to work in groups to do some further research about Tudor clothes.

To start this lesson, children will consider what their own family life might have been like if they were living in Tudor times. How would they earn money? Would they go to school? Would they go on holidays? After discussing these questions, children will find out a bit about what family life was like through a series of true or false questions.

They can express their understanding in a variety of ways during their independent learning time, including answering a series of questions in role as a Tudor child, or writing a diary entry for a particular Tudor child based on the information they've been given.

The last lesson of this series gives your class the chance to consolidate and summarise everything they have learnt about the lives of both rich and poor Tudors. During the teaching input, they will discuss as a class what they think were the biggest differences between the lives of rich and poor Tudors, and each come up with three words to summarise what they think life was like for both rich and poor Tudors.

During their independent learning time, they can then express their understanding of the lives of rich and poor Tudors in a variety of ways, including writing their own information booklets. They will finish the scheme off with a fun end-of-unit quiz to see how much they can remember!