How We Homeschooled Today #70

Meteorites, magma, and torrential rain

(My children are five and seven.)

Short version: We had a fantastic time at the Natural History Museum, shared a very expensive slice of cake, and got soaked in the rain (twice). For the long version, read on…

Yesterday we discussed a trip to the Natural History Museum, and today, miraculously, we managed it.

Before we left the children each did a page of their Jolly Phonics workbooks (my daughter did a bit extra and finished the book), and my daughter revised the spellings she’d been learning before the children’s trip to stay with their grandparents.

Then we got out of the house, which felt like an achievement in itself. I’m well-versed in ‘gentle parenting’ but this morning it felt like The Art of War would have been a more appropriate parenting manual. Why so much dissension when all I wanted to do was take them to one of their favourite places in the world? Anyway, we made it out, and of course everything was better the moment the front door closed behind us.

On the way I read aloud from Amazing Evolution (a truly brilliant book, which we take with us on every trip to the Natural History Museum). We read about hands, a shared feature between vertebrates even if they have apparently disappeared (like the ‘finger bones’ inside a whale’s flipper), how all living things have evolved from a single-celled life-form (resulting in us sharing 50% of our DNA with a cabbage), and Lucy/Dinkinesh, the Australopithecus afarensis who lived 3.2 million years ago and was discovered in 1974. We learnt that because apes are symmetrical, finding one bone tells us what the corresponding bone would have looked like, so although Lucy’s skeleton is only 40% complete, we can make a really good guess at how the whole thing would have looked. (A skeleton that’s 40% complete after 3.2 million years! I can’t get over this.)

On arriving at the museum we had a look at the early human skulls, including the one corresponding to Lucy. Then up to the earth section. We go to the volcanoes and earthquakes bit every visit, so today I suggested that we find one new thing that we hadn’t seen before in that area. They chose some huge chunks of rock, and we read about a ‘dolerite intrusion’—magma forced its way through some pink granite, and then cooled to form dark dolerite rock. You can clearly see the channel of what was once magma, and they were very excited to be able to touch it.

After the restless earth section we went through the bird displays, stopping to look at a case full of hummingbirds. We talked about how their beautiful colours are dulled after 200 years of exposure to UV light, and about changing perceptions; what was once a vibrant display celebrating explorers and naturalists as well as the natural world, is now a prompt to consider what our museums are for, and the ethics of filling them with once-living creatures.

Onwards, to prehistoric marine reptiles: the ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, including those found by Mary Anning in Lyme Regis. And then a pause for a packed lunch.

After lunch we were distracted by the arthropod displays, en route to the mammals. Arthropoda is the largest phylum in the animal kingdom, and includes such varied creatures as lobsters, spiders, bees, and barnacles. We learnt that 80% of all animals are arthropods, ‘built’ a spider with the correct number of body parts, legs, antennae etc, and read about the life cycle of a honeybee. It’s not an easy life, being a honeybee.

A Diprotodon, via Wikipedia

Through the main hall, stopping to see the ‘hands’ and ‘back limbs’ in the blue whale skeleton, and then on to mammals. These have been away for conservation so this was our first chance to see them in a while. My daughter’s favourite was the polar bear, and my son’s the Diprotodon, an extinct marsupial as tall as a man. Then we discovered that the main mammal hall is closed for conservation, so we went into the shells/molluscs room to deal with our disappointment quietly, and got distracted by all the squids, octopus, giant clam shells etc.

Thence to the cafe, stopping first to look at fish and reptiles and write some of them down in the table I take each time we visit the NHM: columns for birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, and amphibians, and the children can choose which animals they’d like to write down, and find the right place for them.

In the cafe we discovered that a single slice of cake now costs £5.35, and vowed to bring our own cake next time. The children had a look at Chi Chi the giant panda and I tried not to think too much about my bank account.

The children said they still wanted to see the Winchcombe meteorite, the huge sequoia slice, the giraffe, the dinosaurs, and the Treasures gallery. We started with the sequoia slice, from a tree that was a seedling in about 590AD and lived for 1,300 years. We talked about the many historical events the tree lived through before it was felled in 1893.

The felling of the giant sequoia in 1891.

The Winchcombe meteorite is a 4.6 billion year old meteorite from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which landed in the Gloucestershire village of Winchcombe in February 2021. To get to it, we walked past dozens of cases of rocks and minerals, which are amazing to look at even if you don’t stop to learn the details. There was even a case marked ‘pebbles’, and if you have small children you will know how enticing this display was to my own young rock collectors. We did stop to look at the difference between two models showing the arrangement of carbon atoms in diamond and graphite.

And then we went to the shop. Things threatened to get stormy, because my daughter had money to burn and my son didn’t. I told him I had no money (entirely true, especially after that cake), and he was beginning to slide down the slippery slope towards full-blown meltdown when I remembered a tip from How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen. “Let’s make a birthday list!” I said, and he thankfully went for it. All I had to do was walk around the shop with him photographing the hundreds of things he wants for his birthday, and he was completely content. His sister spent much time choosing things, calculating how much they would cost and how much money she’d have left over, and ultimately left empty-handed. She checked out the giraffe on the way out and we decided to save the dinosaurs and the Treasures gallery for our next visit.

Same number of neck vertebrae as you. But a bit larger.

We arrived at our local train station in torrential rain and literally had to walk through rivers of floodwater to get home, where, of course, we had hot chocolate and changed into dry clothes. Then my husband took them out for a puddle splash walk and they all came home soaking again.

I’ll share any bedtime reading in Notes, but sending this out now because it’s already long enough.

---

How We Homeschool Pen Pal Exchange

If your child would like a pen pal, leave a comment or send me an e-mail with their age and home country and I’ll get to work. Over 40 children matched so far and more on the waiting list. Spreading friendship and literacy one letter at a time!

---

Thanks for reading. If you’re not subscribed, sign up—it’s free!—and never miss a post.