Watch: Children in the 1960s
Find out what life was like for children in the 1960s.
Nathan: I want to be an astronaut and fly to space when I grow up.
Lucy: Me too! I want to go to Mars and find aliens.
Nanna: I once wanted to be an astronaut too. People went to space for the very first time when I was little. It was all over the news. Let’s travel back and take a look.
Young Nanna: When I was eight, I used to read comics about astronauts exploring the galaxy and there were lots of fun programmes like Dr Who and Thunderbirds on telly.
Nathan: I’ve watched Thunderbirds.
Young Nanna: It’s great, isn’t it? My neighbour had a collection of rocket ships we used to play with.
Lucy: That looks like loads of fun.
Young Nanna: We were the first family from India to move onto the street. We invited all the neighbours over to watch the moon landing so we could get to know everyone.
Nathan: What’s the moon landing?
Young Nanna: It was when the first people flew all the way to the moon and walked around on it.
Lucy: Wow!
Young Nanna: That summer, we went on a holiday to a summer camp by the beach. We pretended that the camp was a base on the moon and we were all living there.
Lucy: We’re going camping this summer.
Nathan: We can play that on our holiday!
Nathan: Did you ever become an astronaut, Nanna?
Nanna: Oh no, it was very hard for a woman to become an astronaut back then. But I still read lots of books and watch films about space today.
Lucy: Can I borrow some of your books?
Nanna: Of course you can.
Lucy: Yay!
What was family life like?
In the 1960s people's lifestyles and jobs improved.
Older children were known as teenagers and had more time and pocket money to spend on new popular music.
Supermarkets started to become much more popular places to shop.
Did people watch TV?
Most homes now had a TV set and people watched familiar programmes, such as Dr Who and Coronation Street.
Children's programmes were on at special times of the day. There were no children's channels yet!
Lots of people enjoyed listening to music in the 60s. Bands like The Beatles were very popular.
Where did people go on holiday?
- More families had their holidays at holiday camps in the UK.
- Holiday camps became popular after the war in the 1950s and 60s when people had more money and time to spend.
What kind of games and toys were popular?
- The space race and moon landings inspired many space games.
- Toys like the space hopper were popular.
- Dolls like Sindy and Barbie were popular toys.
- Children played with toys and games such as Trolls, Twister and Etch-A-Sketch.
Did you know?
- The first woman went into space in 1963. She was called Valentina Tereshkova. The first man went into space in 1961. By 1969 humans were walking on the moon!
- In 1966 England won the football World Cup. The tournament was held in England with the final taking place at Wembley Stadium.
Activities
Activity 1: Children in the 1960s quiz
Activity 2: 1960s colouring sheet
Download and print this colouring sheet of Lucy, Nathan and Nanna in the 1960s. Can you colour it in and label it with some of the items that were familiar to children in the 1960s?
Download the 1960s colouring sheet here.
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