As part of my daughter’s Year 8 History we have been looking at the Industrial Revolution and Victorian England and naturally her younger brother has participated in quite a few activities so I thought it might be fun to do the Victorian Ventures History Hackers eBook with him. He is a huge fan of the Twinkl eBooks and their activities, they are actually one of his favourite English activities. He just finds the eBooks fun and he always comments that working through the related activities linked to the eBooks is a more interesting way to do his “work”.

The Victorian Ventures is actually the second History Hackers eBook but we have never read the first one (the Roman History Hackers) and they are written in such a way that they can be read independently. With all the eBooks we always end up doing them slightly differently but they always end up being a fun activity. With this eBook we actually read through it quite quickly and then once we had read the whole book we did a bunch of the linked activities.

I must admit I was impressed with the story. I think sometimes when you hear it is an original story by Twinkl you assume the story is not going to be quality writing but actually I find their stories engaging and great examples of how to use figurative language. As we were reading the kids were finding similes, interesting adjectives, extended noun phrases etc etc. Anyway the point is please don’t assume the stories are going to be a poor quality because they really are not. In this one, two kids travel back in time to the Victorian era where they discover first hand what living conditions were like, what happened in workhouses and how the rich lived a vastly different life to the poor. It is written in such a way that the Victorian facts are woven into the story so they kids learn about the time period just by reading an interesting book.

Activity wise there is always quite a bit to chose from. I had already printed out the Victorian timeline when we were discussing the period with his sister

so for my son I gave him the timeline activity and let him slot in the cards onto the timeline (I always love these type of activities where the kids create their own timeline).

I also gave him the comprehension to try (oh and if you have older siblings there is a great KS3 comprehensions which they could work through – Living in the Victorian Workhouse).

And he also had a go at creating some Venn Diagrams showing the difference between poor and rich lifestyles and Victorian schools and modern schools (I really liked this because we have recently chatted about Venn Diagrams so it was nice to be able to link some in).

And lastly he had a go at creating a mindmap (we call them spider diagrams) and a diary entry about life in the workhouse.

I always find working through these eBooks interesting and easy – easy in terms of no or very little prep work for me, it really is download, chose what we want to do, print and go for it. Something which I am appreciating more and more now that my oldest is getting into more complicated work which requires a lot more prep work on my side.