How we homeschooled today #35

Playgrounds, Sumer, head injuries

I bumped my head this afternoon and feel a bit delicate. Excuse the lack of links.

• We made the second trip of the week to the Princess Diana Memorial Playground.

• Before we left the house the children each did some work in their Jolly Phonics workbooks, Multiplication by Heart (which was quite a few cards today and they did really good work), and an activity in their Usborne Adding and Subtracting books. We also learnt a new Ancient Greek work: krater, meaning mixing vessel, and enjoyed imagining the mouth of a volcano as a giant mixing bowl. How big would the spoon need to be?!

• We took the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History on the journey to the park (not a small book to fling in a rucksack!) and I read to them about Sumer and the invention of writing. I showed them by flicking through the book how Sumer came before Rome, before Greece, even before Egypt. We looked at the map to see how far the Sumerian trading routes had reached. We drew parallels with London growing up around the Thames, and Rome around the Tiber. Then at various points in the day they chose other pages for me to read to them. I really recommend this book for history; lots of detailed pictures, small but informative chunks of text, really clear and engaging.

  

  A Sumerian king of Ur

• After I bumped my head (bad enough to have to sit in the First Aid room and fill out a form—just want you want to do with a head injury) my daughter proved herself capable of understanding the London Underground system while I held an ice pack on my head. She kept track of where we were and how many stops until we had to get off to get home. I was so proud of her, because although I have often talked about this and pointed at the maps, she has never done it herself before and she totally stepped up to the plate.

• Reading in bed: Daisy and the Trouble with Life, and the Cat in the Hat.

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