How we homeschooled today #88
A tour of City churches, plus ice cream and toyshops
Yesterday I did the monthly resources list instead of the usual daily post. So of course, the children did a beautiful morning’s work and I didn’t get to smugly tell you all about it. Today, predictably, they have done not a jot of their daily list.
We had a special day with one of the children’s godmothers. We had to leave the house by 10am, and I naively thought we could manage a small amount of the usual daily work, but—of course—I was wrong. In my desperation to have a shower I very nearly turned the TV on, but I didn’t, and was rewarded by stepping out of the shower to total silence because the children were reading their books (Trojan Horse and Daisy and the Trouble with Coconuts—not exactly Jane Eyre, but my daughter has read it twice through in the last 24 hours).
In London we visited St Stephen Walbrook, a church rebuilt after the Great Fire, to a design by Christopher Wren. The children looked at Bibles, and we talked about whether these were the ‘original’ Bible. There were poppies and symbols of Remembrance Sunday, and we learnt about the execution of cowards and deserters, and the subsequent successful campaign to pardon these servicemen. We talked about whether it was right for a country to kill its own citizens in this way, and whether it was acceptable in a time of war.
Onwards, to the Roman Amphitheatre at the Guildhall, which we have visited before. We also had a quick look at the Victorian paintings, and saw the Lord Mayor of London’s Stage Coach, which dates from 1757. Then into a second Wren church, St Lawrence Jewry. This one was destroyed in the Great Fire, rebuilt by Wren, and then almost totally destroyed in Blitz, but has since been restored according to Wren’s design. We compared it to St Stephen Walbrook, and a nice man told my daughter all about the organ and all the hidden pipes. There were 107 City churches before the fire, of which 87 were destroyed. 51 were rebuilt by Wren after the Great Fire (1666). 24 of Wren’s rebuilt churches are intact today. Maybe I can convince the children to visit every one…
The rest of the day was decidedly less educational and was mostly spent in toy shops, but we did visit Tate Modern and discovered a new area (or new to me) with sofas for grown-ups and lots of foam bricks for children to build into tall towers and then knock down. There are also lots of lovely children’s books, but what child wants to read when there are towers to build and destroy?
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Have you ever visited the Mithraeum? It’s across the street from St Stephens Walbrook. Quite an experience, plus superb Roman artefacts on display.