What was life like during the 1940s and the 1970s?

Today we were given some pictures of everyday day life from the 1940s and the 1970s. We had to put them into the correct decade. In our groups we then had to discuss the differences, and how they would have affected everyday life.

We thought that the push button phone came from the 1970s. This would have been faster and more convenient to use than the dial phone. More people had phones in the 1970s than the 1940s.

The electric Kettle was from the 1970s. In the 1940s people had to boil their kettles on a fire or range. There was a whistle to tell them when it had boiled. We decided that to make a cup of tea, the electric kettle would have been our choice. It was faster, and tea bags had been invented by then so we wouldn't have had to use tea leaves and a strainer!

The Batman Comic was from the 1970s. We noticed that it was in colour, a bit of a give away! We also looked at the fashions in the comics. The animation was much better and more modern in the Batman Comic. We thought that the colour and the more exciting characters might get children to read more. We noticed a big difference in the cars of these two decades. Cars were expensive and rare in the 1940s but had begun to be produced cheaply in the 1970s. We thought about how difficult it must have been in the 1940s when very few people could afford cars and the petrol to run them.

What do you think about our last four pictures? Can you decide which comes from which decade? How do you think life would have changed between the 1940s and the 1970s?