Join us as we celebrate the major holidays such as Easter, Halloween and Christmas with an 18th century twist.
We also celebrate some of the biggest US holidays of the year with celebration events for the 4th July and Thanksgiving.
In May, we will also be holding a special Coronation Celebration as part of the city-wide celebrations for the coronation of King Charles III. At Benjamin Franklin House, we will look back at the coronation of King George III, an event that Franklin was able to attend in person, as well as some other famous kings and queens of England from the past 1000 years of history!
Our new afterschool Science Club will also be kicking off in January, with monthly sessions until July. Each session will focus on a different topic in the KS2/3 Science curriculum including Electricity, Forces, the Human Body and Sound.
Finally, our Summer Season of Family Events will return in August with a weekly series of fun workshops that explore skills in Calligraphy, Archaeology and Portraiture.
Please note: Booking for each event will open roughly one month in advance. Specific dates for TBC events will be released roughly two months in advance.
Here are some of the highlights from our incredible summer season of family events at Benjamin Franklin House!
Over the month of August we held a number of events as part of our Summer Break @ Ben’s House programme. We learned all about Benjamin Franklin, 36 Craven Street and Georgian Britain as well as getting creative with lots of arts and crafts activities.
In our first week we recreated Franklin’s famous Key and Kite experiment using a Tesla Coil in our Student Science Centre. We each got an opportunity to create a bolt of electricity using our Windhurst Machine before heading down to Franklin’s Parlour to build some decorative kites!
Our second week focussed on the art of calligraphy and the importance of letters in 18th century communication. We deciphered one of Franklin’s own letters before writing our own using dip pens and ink. The workshop was certainly the messiest of them all with inky fingers all round! We also created our own parchment paper with some good old fashioned tea-staining.
The focus of our third week moved away from Franklin and on to one of our other famous residents, the anatomist William Hewson, who lived in the House from 1770-1774. We learned about the anatomy school once located in the House and examined our collection of bones that were unearthed in our basement. We then became archaeologists for the day and explored our collection of archaeology tools and artefacts. To end the session we built model skeletons before creating our own skeleton diagrams using cotton wool buds and glue!
The final week of Summer Break @ Ben’s House explored the history of portraiture and saw us learn some valuable skills in art history. We deciphered the symbols in several famous portraits from history before examining a collection of Franklin portraits to learn more about the man behind the canvass. We then got our paint pallets out to create portraits of ourselves to take home and frame for all to see!
This year, Benjamin Franklin House is collaborating with the William Morris Society and Fulham Palace for an exciting Children’s Summer Fair to end the Summer Holidays!
Join us on Saturday 27th August for an exiting day of family friendly activities.
Get stuck in with the range of activities on offer:
The William Morris Society will be getting inspired by our latest exhibition on May Morris by recreating her Orange Tree in 3D form and creating beautiful tissue paper flowers.
Benjamin Franklin House will be exploring letters from the past with the chance to write your own 18th century letters using quills, ink and parchment!
Fulham Palace will be bringing along some mystery objects from the past. Get curious and guess what they are, who used them, and when and where you think they come from. Complete with a chance to get into costume!
The event will be taking place at The William Morris Society, 26 Upper Mall, London, W6 9TA and is FREE! Although we do request that you book tickets to secure a place as there are limited slots available. You can book your tickets here.
https://benjaminfranklinhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_4193-scaled.jpg17072560Henry Wilkinsonhttps://benjaminfranklinhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/bfh_web_logo_white_retina.pngHenry Wilkinson2022-07-18 17:25:232022-07-18 17:25:23A-Maze-ing! Franklin's Young Inventors get creative with Light!
This Summer, Benjamin Franklin House is holding an exciting season of family events across the month of August. Join us at 36 Craven Street for a series of fun filled family days that explore the history of one of London’s best hidden gems.
Each event delves into a different aspect of the rich history of the House, from Benjamin Franklin’s experiments with lightning to the art of Georgian portraiture; 18th century letter writing to secret anatomy schools in the basement!
Across August we have four exciting events taking place; you can find out more and book your tickets here;
On Monday 13th June 2022, Benjamin Franklin House joined forces with the Royal Institute of Great Britain (Ri) and National Physical Laboratory (NPL) to deliver one of the most exciting editions of Science on Stage to date!
Science on Stage, held in partnership with The Royal Institution, illuminates the National Curriculum through a variety of activities which demonstrate how the work of Franklin and scientists at the Ri arose from a spirit of awe and curiosity about the world in which they lived. The content is appropriate for upper Key Stage 2 children with the focus on a range of learning styles to enable all children to benefit from the experience.
This year we welcome almost 400 school children and staff from schools across London into the Faraday Theatre at the Ri for an exciting day of demonstrations. The show kicked off with our very own Education Manager, Henry, whose presentation on the true nature of lightning electrified the audience from start to finish. There was a thunderous applause as he lit up the room with our Tesla Coil to give a miniature Ben Franklin a loud zap of lightning!
Our presentation was then followed by two of the Ri’s very own presenters who demonstrated some exhilarating experiments with fire. They created explosions left right and centre as well as a spectrum of brightly coloured flames. Perhaps one of the most memorable moments of the day came when they burned a few too many onion rings in one experiment, which resulted in a bonfire-sized flame erupting toward the ceiling and shattering the glass bowl beneath it!
Following a short break the show was then rounded off with a fantastic demonstration from Andrew Hanson from the NPL who explored all of the fun that can be had with liquid nitrogen. Him and his team shattered flowers, created a bubbling mass of smoke, and revealed some of the most interesting facts about temperatures found across the planet and galaxy.
This is an annual event and following the overwhelming success of the 2022 show, we are already looking forward to 2023. Science on Stage is completely free of charge for all visiting schools, however tickets are limited and given on a first come first serve basis. If you are interested in bringing your pupils to Science on Stage 2023 please contact our Education Manager (education@benjaminfranklinhouse.org) who will be able to add you to our events mailing list so that you don’t miss out on future ticket releases!
https://benjaminfranklinhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/IMG_3992-scaled.jpg17072560Henry Wilkinsonhttps://benjaminfranklinhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/bfh_web_logo_white_retina.pngHenry Wilkinson2022-06-22 16:33:552022-06-23 16:52:08Science on Stage 2022
Attention all KS2 and KS3 teachers! We are re-launching our Sister School’s Programme for Autumn 2022 and are looking for classes to participate in this fantastic opportunity!
In collaboration with Paul Revere House in Boston, Massachusetts (USA) the Sister Schools project is a Benjamin Franklin House programme linking schools in the UK with their counterparts in the United States.
Sister Schools allows children to participate in a fun and collaborative curriculum based on the amazing lives of Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere. Themes include our shared heritage, citizenship, and science and innovation.
The programme will last 6-8 weeks, include a free trip to Benjamin Franklin House, a virtual tour of Paul Revere House, school visits from the Education Manager and a Teacher’s Pack including pre-planned session outlines and activities.
We will be launching our new pairings in September 2022 and are on the look out for KS2-3 classes of 30 to participate in the programme. If you are interested in learning more about Sister Schools and would like to view the Teacher’s Pack, please contact our Education Manager (education@benjaminfranklinhouse.org).
In May 2022, our Education Manager travelled to Watling Park Primary School in Edgware (London) to deliver one of our Outreach Programmes to two groups of Year 5 students. In each session, the pupils were asked to follow in Franklin’s footsteps and become inventors!
The classes produced some fantastic ideas, from innovative fashion booths to money guns, translator machines to friction shoes! At the end of each session, the pupils pitched their inventions to the rest of the class for the group to decide on which to invest in.
Our Education Manager has selected his favourites from the two sessions and these can be found in the gallery below!
https://benjaminfranklinhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DSCN1738.jpg30004000Henry Wilkinsonhttps://benjaminfranklinhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/bfh_web_logo_white_retina.pngHenry Wilkinson2022-05-11 14:24:572022-05-11 14:25:40Outreach: Become an Inventor
Science on Stage, held in partnership with The Royal Institution, illuminates the National Curriculum through a variety of activities which demonstrate how the work of Franklin and scientists at the Ri arose from a spirit of awe and curiosity about the world in which they lived. The content is appropriate for upper Key Stage 2 children with the focus on a range of learning styles to enable all children to benefit from the experience.
You can watch a recording of Science on Stage 2021 below. This year’s event took place virtually on 26 May:
Thank you for the brilliant workshop. We learned a lot and have been looking more into Benjamin Franklin since the session. We’re very interested in music, so delved a bit deeper into his instrument.
Thank you, children love the WOW factor moments!
The children really enjoyed the event. They particularly liked the explosions and the stories behind the science. Thank you.
https://benjaminfranklinhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/bfh_web_logo_white_retina.png00Megan Kinghttps://benjaminfranklinhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/bfh_web_logo_white_retina.pngMegan King2021-07-19 11:11:062021-07-19 11:43:05Science on Stage 2021
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