Riverside Primary School pupils are taking a trip down memory lane to get a glimpse of the past.
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As part of its curriculum, the grade one pupils earlier in the year were shown various examples of past technology, brought in by their teachers to show them what life used to be like.
However, the old items were so popular with grade one students that the teachers thought it might be something worth expanding to the other grade levels.
Objects like old landline phones, encyclopedias and even an old butter churn have transformed the school’s new flexible learning space into RiMONA- the Riverside Museum of OId and New Artefacts.
RiMONA has been running for the past month at the school and will be set up temporarily but doesn’t have an end date yet.
Grade 1 teacher Michelle D’Alessandro said the “museum” had been given a great reception by the pupils, and had been very interactive.
“We have set up the museum in categories, such as kitchen, music, and education; which has old computers, pens and encyclopedias,” she said.
One of the most popular category tables is the mystery table, where items were placed with no name tags or explanation.
“The kids have been spending a lot of time at the mystery table, trying to figure out what we have there,” Ms D’Alessandro said.
She said RiMONA had been a great way for some of the pupils to engage with the past.
“Some of them have never seen these things before.
“Like for example, we may have in the past used encyclopedias for all of our learning and school projects, but now they wouldn’t even know what an encyclopedia was.”
She said all grade groups had engaged well with the museum and had been asking lots of questions.
“They have been interested in all of the exhibits – but particularly the old phones, as a lot of them haven’t seen a landline,” she said.
The name RiMONA came from one of Riverside Primary School’s teachers, who said the museum needed to have a name.