How We Homeschooled Today #79

Books, museums, and lots of playing in the sunshine

It became apparent early on that the only thing for it today was to Get Everyone Out Of The House. Luckily we had a home ed meet up scheduled in a playground, for which we left early because, as I mentioned, we had to get out of the house.

On the train my son (5) read Small and Tall Tales of Extinct Animals (about extinct animals and the myths they sometimes inspired—I recommend it), and my daughter (7) read Ribsy, another book in Beverly Cleary’s Henry Huggins series.

On the way to the playground we—obviously—couldn’t resist stopping in a secondhand bookshop. We bought:

• Usborne Roman Army

• Orchard Magical Tales

• What Were the Salem Witch Trials (nothing to do with our current curriculum but the series is so good I can’t resist these books when I see them)

• Usborne French for Beginners

Still on the way, we stopped to look at some anchors, including a cutter head—used by ships to remove materials from the seabed in land reclamation and large construction projects. We counted 5 ‘arms’ with 7 ‘teeth’ on each, so calculated how many teeth in total—and that’s all the maths we did today. We learnt that in sand, a tooth can last two days, but in rock they need replacing every 30 minutes. Here’s what it looks like, if you were wondering:

Via Wikimedia

Then we got to the playground. I could tell you about the social skills, problem-solving skills, imagination-building, physical exercise etc my children did today, but let’s call a spade a spade: they spent hours and hours running around with their friends in the sunshine, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

And then, at 4pm when I was thirsty, hungry, and desperate to go home, they asked to go to the National Maritime Museum. How could I refuse? I said we couldn’t do one of our marathon museum trips, but they could choose one gallery each. They chose ‘Nelson, Navy, Nation’, and ‘Polar Worlds’. I had, miraculously, brought their museum notebooks and my daughter voluntarily made a brief note about Nelson losing his arm, and my son dictated something about Nelson playing chess on board HMS Victory. They saw the coat he was wearing when he was shot at Trafalgar, and they compared his handwriting with his left hand, two days after he was shot and lost the right arm, and nearly a year later, by which time it looked like ‘normal’ handwriting.

In Polar Worlds they learnt about the food explorers take on polar expeditions, and how Inuit source food in the Arctic. They were also particularly enamoured with boxes marked ‘Play With Me’, filled with cuddly toys (on a polar theme) and ski goggles, mittens etc, and I felt my inner Grinch coming out (again) because why do we feel the need to turn our museums into play areas? Play is good, and museums are good, but I’m not convinced that there is much benefit to be had from combining the two together. In the polar gallery there are ice axes, snow shoes, polar bear claws, a narwhal tusk, images of whale hunts, Inuit carvings… but it’s hard to get a child to engage with these very exciting exhibits when there are cuddly toys to play with. Regular readers will know this is something I return to from time to time. I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments. Feel free to disagree!

Endurance trapped in the Antarctic ice in 1915. Via Royal Museums Greenwich.

More reading on the way home, and at teatime I finished reading aloud from Whales to the Rescue. My daughter now wants me to organise a home ed London litter pick to stop plastic waste reaching the oceans. Anyone want to join us…?

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