How we homeschooled today #25
Poetry, greenery, grandparents
This morning my husband (The Common Reader) told the children he would pay them to learn poetry, as many families have done before us. So there was an initial rush to the poetry books and much calculation of how much they could earn if they learned X number of poems. Possibly some memorisation took place. Time will tell.
Then we spent the day at Kew Gardens with Granny and Grandpa, and I can’t pretend it was a day of book-learning. Instead it was a day of walking and running for miles through gorgeous greenery, in the company of much-loved family. And what more can you ask of a day than that? If you do, in fact, ask for more, here are some of the things we learnt along the way:
A jay can bury 5,000 acorns in an autumn
General Sherman (the world’s tallest tree) is as tall as the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. As we have been to the top of the dome and have very vivid memories of what it felt like up there on a windy day, this carries some meaning for us.
You can estimate a tree’s age by counting how many hand spans it takes to encircle the tree at chest height. The oak we encircled was perhaps 200 years old.
We spotted a new butterfly for our ongoing tally of butterfly species. So far we have a paltry 5 for the year (common blue, cabbage white, brimstone, speckled wood, and today’s red admiral). But I think it is still early for butterflies.
We have now had big days out three days in a row, so tomorrow I’m hoping for a day at home!