What was it like to be a child in the 1920s and 1930s?
What was it like to go to school and what games did children play after the War ended in 1918?
The way people lived changed dramatically in the 1920s and 1930s. While the Roaring Twenties brought great changes in music, entertainment, fashion, there was very little money after the huge costs of the War. The end of the 1920s saw the beginning of the Great Depression. Many people struggled with lack of employment, and many families suffered a great deal.
Read the following paragraphs taken from an article written from Historic UK, which really paints a clear picture for us to imagine what life was like for children 100 years ago.
A few weeks ago we found out a bit about what children played back then. What do you recognise is still played today, in any similar way?
Did you notice what the children were playing in the first picture?
What do you notice about this picture below? (Not just that it is in black and white - all were then! What else?)
Note: compulsory means 'required by law'.
1) a) From between what ages did children have to go to school?
b) Do you know how it is different to today?
2) For schools which could not offer school dinners, what would the children bring in to school during the winter months?
3) What does the term 'chalk and talk' mean?
4) What were 'the three Rs?' (Nowadays we tend to say the three Rs are for Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, but not back then!)
5) What items did children use, for example in the countryside, if they didn't have pencils and paper?
