Roman Vienna

This semester presented a new challenge for me.

Sixth Grade History.

I quickly found out that a sixth grade class is a lot different from a seventh grade class; and even the lessons I learned from teaching the seventh graders had faded in my mind after two years...but that's all water under the proverbial bridge.

This opportunity to teach sixth graders meant that I was back in my wheelhouse. Teaching History is what I love to do. And teaching history in a city like Vienna is a dream come true...well, actually, not even a dream come true. I never even had the gall to dream such a dream. Anyways, teaching the sixth graders meant that I got to teach them about the Romans.

So...I got to thinking that it would be cool to do a field trip. Well, it just so happens that modern day Vienna used to be the site of a Roman fortress and civilian outpost called Vindibona...there are a handful of archaeological digs throughout downtown Vienna that serve as a window to the past. There is also a small museum that chronicles the Roman history of this beautiful city. I decided to put together a little field trip...I even went a bit overboard and created a workbook and scavenger hunt that would help the students stay focused on our walking tour...

Some pictures;

All the boys decided to try to fit on the couch before we left school. It's a three person couch.  There's eight of them on the couch.

on the ubahn

working on the scavenger hunt. On the left of the picture you can see some of the ruins that are protected in the kellar of the Rome Museum. Pretty cool stuff.

Upstairs in the museum finishing more of the scavenger hunt.  They had some great maps painted on the wall that showed where key parts of the Roman settlement were in relation to modern Vienna.

Walking through the city to the next stop.

The sixth graders at Michaelerplatz in front of the Hofburg palace where there is an open air pit of an excavation of a Roman residence and workshop.

looking down into the ruins.

As we were walking through the Hofburg, we encountered this assembly of an Austrian military band and honor guard.  It's not every day that you run into this sort of thing so we decided to stick around...

Turns out the honor guard was waiting to welcome the President of Hungary! So, as part of our field trip we also got to see  the President of Hungary (the mustachioed fellow on the left) and the President of Austria (grey-haired guy on the right). Very cool, and definitely not planned!

The class sitting in front of the Austrian Parliament building