Mushrooms: focus on history

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This lesson plan is designed to inspire children, aged 7-11 years, to learn about the history of mushrooms. It aims to excite kids by demonstrating through activities and games how mushrooms have been used over time in other cultures, including how to make mushroom dye. It relates to the curriculum in your country by meeting certain learning outcomes. Downloadable materials to support the lesson plan include a fact sheet on the history of mushrooms and questions that can be used for a historical mushroom fact quiz.

Activities

Find the facts
Put the children in teams and give each team a history fact sheet. Each team chooses one person to go out and collect a question from the adult, then return to their group. Having read the first question; they must find out the answer to it. The next person from the group goes back to the adult, tells them the answer and gets the next question. This works best if each group has a different question to start with; then they are not listening to another team’s answers. You could ask the children to write the answer down as well as telling it to the adult if you want to work on writing skills.

These are some questions you could use:

1. What did they use mushrooms for in China?

2. Who thought they were food from the gods?

3. Where has a bowl with mushrooms from the Bronze Age in it been found?

4. What did the Romans think mushroom gave to warriors?

5. Who thought that mushrooms would help you live for ever?

6. What was a mushroom preserved in for more than 90 million years?

7. Which country was the first to grow mushrooms to sell?

8. Who couldn’t touch mushrooms in ancient Egypt?

9. How long have mushrooms been used in China?

10. Where did the French grow their mushrooms in the mid-1400s?

11. What sort of mushrooms were in the bowl found in Italy?

12. Apart from the Romans, who thought that mushrooms would give soldiers extra strength?

Superhero or just a fun gi?
In many cultures it was believed that eating mushrooms could endow people with super-human strength.
This was thought in Russia, China, Greece, Mexico and Latin America. Other beliefs were that eating mushrooms would mean that you would go to live with the gods when you died. Make up a story about someone who eats
a mushroom and gets super powers. Think about what the super power is, and what they would do with it.
The story could be presented as a comic strip, a written story, or even as a play – which could be filmed.

Ink making
Through the years, mushrooms have been used in lots of different ways, including producing colours for making dyes. The best mushroom to use is the ink cap mushroom, which isn’t poisonous but isn’t available to buy as it isn’t eaten. Instead, you can use mushrooms such as chanterelles and oyster mushrooms to make your own dye. Cut up a large quantity of those mushrooms – it doesn’t matter if they are old or damaged – and put them in a saucepan, covering them with boiling water. Boil them for a few minutes. You will see the water turning a different colour. That is the dye coming
out. You can use this to dye wool or textiles, although the colour will not be fixed and will wash out. Try experimenting by adding either an acid (such as vinegar) or an alkaline (such as bicarbonate of soda) to the boiling mushrooms and see if the colour is any deeper.

 

Download supporting materials for this lesson plan on the history of mushrooms

Downloadable materials to support this lesson plan include:

Together they are used in conjunction with the find the facts activity, in which children are divided into teams and must work together in an attempt to find the answers.

 

Curriculum

England

Spoken language

  • Listen and respond appropriately to adults and their peers.
  • Ask relevant questions to extend their understanding and knowledge
  • Use relevant strategies to build their vocabulary.

Word reading

  • Apply their growing knowledge of root words, prefixes and suffixes both to read aloud and to understand the meaning of new words they meet.
  • Read further exception words, noting the unusual correspondences between spelling and sound, and where these occur in the word.

Writing - composition

  • Plan their writing by discussing and recording ideas.
  • Read their own writing aloud, to a group or the whole class.
  • Note and develop initial ideas, drawing on reading and research where necessary.

Reading - comprehension

  • Retrieve, record and present information from non-fiction.

Science

  • Set up simple practical enquiries, and comparative and fair tests.
  • Make systematic and careful observations.

History

  • Children should understand aspects of the history of the wider world.
Scotland

Spoken language

  • Select ideas and relevant information.
  • Word reading
  • Use [their] knowledge of sight vocabulary [and] phonics.

Writing - composition

  • By considering the type of text [they are] creating, [they] can select ideas and relevant information, organise these in a logical sequence and use words which will be interesting and/or useful for others.

Reading - comprehension

  • Find, select, sort and use information for a specific purpose; [use] other types of writing to help [them] understand information and ideas, explore problems, generate and develop ideas or create new text.

Science

  • I can distinguish between living and non living things. I can sort living things into groups and explain my decisions.

History

  • Broaden their understanding of the world by learning about human activities and achievements in the past and present.
Wales

Spoken language

  • Identify key points and follow up ideas through question and comment.

Word reading

  • [Develop] word recognition and contextual understanding within a balanced and coherent programme.

Writing - composition

  • Use the characteristic features of literary and non-literary texts in their own writing, adapting their style to suit the audience and purpose; choose and use appropriate vocabulary.

Reading - comprehension

  • Consider what they read/view, responding orally and in writing to the ideas, vocabulary, style, presentation and organisation of image and language, and be able to select evidence to support their views.

Science

  • Apply or develop a model to test an idea or a theory.

History

  • Distinguish between ‘fact’ and ‘opinion’, giving some evidence/knowledge- based reasons for this.
Northern Ireland

Spoken language

  • Share, respond to and evaluate ideas, arguments and points of view.

Word reading

  • Use a variety of reading skills for different reading purposes.

Writing - composition

  • Express thoughts, feelings and opinions in imaginative and factual writing; begin to formulate their own personal style.

Reading - comprehension

  • Use traditional and digital sources to locate, select, evaluate and communicate information relevant for a particular task.

Science

  • Recognise when carrying out a test, whether or not it is fair.

History

  • Use a variety of forms of creative writing to demonstrate empathy with the past.
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