Bringing history to life in Year 2!

Last week, Year 2 created their own coat of arms. We looked at the new coat of arms designed for Meghan Markle and discussed the symbolism used. The children noticed the animals, patterns and colours and we talked about their meaning. The crest has yellow stripes to signify the sunny country Meghan comes from, the lion signifies prince Harry (it was on his mothers coat of arms) and the crown on top shows that Meghan is now a royal. Purple and red are also royal colours.

Next the children used Ipads and researched ideas of things to put on their own coat of arms. We talked about using traditional ideas, such as, where they were born, where their family come from, using roman numerals for numbers and ensuring the colours they chose were meaningful.

Did you know the first coat of arms was used to distinguish one knight from another? As a result of this, knights began to paint symbols on their shields. They eventually began to put the symbol on their banner and the coat they wore over their armor. This is how it got the name "coat of arms".

"I looked up where my dad is from and used the colours from this flag- black, yellow and green" Malachi

"My surname has its own crest and it has seashells on so I've used that on mine" Finley

"I'm 7 so I wrote this in roman numerals" Nela

"I used blue because I am loyal and kind to my friends" Lilly Ann

"We researched lots of crests to give us ideas and I looked up Havering and used the helmet and colours to put on my one" Frankie