The Labours of Ferdinand

One of Ferdy's favourites of the Greek Myths is the story of Heracles, who is renowned for his great courage and strength.

As I have mentioned a few times, as opposed to Heracles who was able to strangle a snake as a mere toddler, Ferdy has been having difficulty with the development of his fine and gross motor skills. He actually seems to have made a bit of a leap in the last few weeks, but slower gross and fine motor skills can affect everything you do, from learning to write to getting dressed and eating. And when everyone around you seems much more able, it is easy to start finding excuses not to do such tasks and lose confidence.

This half term, therefore, we have been trying to focus a little more on physical activities and Friday began with a Jumping Clay home ed session. They usually do something educational like parts of the body but today it was Christmas tree decorations.

l-r: rolling a line; cutting the squares; attaching the squares; rolling a sausage shape

I suppose it's going to be a Star Wars themed Christmas then...

R2D2

The next task was a run around the park, pausing at the duckpond for some maths.

20 mallards - 2 mallards = 

Back at home, we watched some videos about length and measuring capacity (Ferdy is doing length at school) but Ferdy just wanted to look at books so we looked up his heroes in the encyclopedia we got out of the library last week, and learnt how to use an index. Inspired by his hero Ferdy decided to play the labours of Heracles so we set physical tasks for us to complete around the house. Sadly, tidying the playroom was rejected as one.

Ferdy wrote a book review about Heracles and drew a picture. Give him a few weeks and he'll be fighting the three-headed Cerberus, no problem.

Cerberus

Fridays come in all shapes and sizes

Our day began with a lesson in pastoral care as Gil had to have his preschool injections. Ferdy and I took him to the drs with Ferdy promising to hold his hand whilst he had them. How sweet, I thought, until Ferdy found some Beano and Dandy annuals in the waiting room and forgot all about his altruistic offerings.

Next stop was the library, where we returned some of our books and took out 17 more.

Ferdy's learning about adjectives at school so we looked at quite a few books and picked out the adjectives, a favourite was Top Place Percy, about Percy the plaice who thinks he is a 'slow, dull, flat, boring' fish.

And because we hadn't read enough books, we popped to a cafe where there were more to read.

It's imperative to wear a flower on your head when reading books

Earlier that morning we had watched some some videos and songs about 2D and 3D shapes and learnt about the properties of 3D shapes so we thought it might be nice to go out and see if we could find some 3D shapes.

It shaped out to be a pretty successful shape hunt. Ferdy searched for, and Gil modelled the shapes

Cuboids

Cylinders

Spheres

Ferdy even found a cone at the end of the day, or part of one, but we decided it counted.











It was one of those slightly fragmented sort of days where nothing really seemed to take shape (I know, I just can't help it) but actually we did rather a lot. Ferdy seems to be quite a bit happier at doing some reading and some writing on Fridays so all of that takes up less time; he often reads straight after breakfast, and does his writing at the end of the day. And I love how what we learn seeps into the weekend; 'Ferdy do you want your cheese grated or in cubes?', 'In cuboids please Mummy'...

Ferdy wrote: 'I went on the fast swing and an apple is a sphere'

Commas, Memory, Jorvik Vikings, and other Museums

Until this Friday, I would never have used a comma before an and when writing a list. But when we looked at commas by writing 'I like At-Ats, C3PO, R2D2, and Lando', Ferdy told me that there is a comma before the and. I should have learnt never to argue with him as we looked it up and he's right (although I pointed out to him that it's optional, so I'm right too). And I always wondered why Vampire Weekend went on about an Oxford Comma.

Billy had a client meeting in York today so we decided to go with him. Whilst getting ready, we played a quick Kim's memory game. Ferdy remembered 5/9 the first time and 9/9 the second.




York is famous for its Vikings so to prepare ourselves we looked up some videos of Vikings. Seeing as Ferdy is so engrossed in Greek Mythology at the moment, I thought listening to some Norse Mythology on the way to York might be a good introduction too.

Our first stop in York was the Jorvik Viking Centre. We were immediately transported back to 960 in a time capsule, and taken on a trip through a viking village.

View from our capsule

We met a blacksmith, fishermen, a leatherworker selling shoes and even a priest giving a lady her last rites. There were lots of animals, and the smells in places (especially the rotting meat) were a little unbearable. I think I would have preferred not to encounter the man on his outdoor toilet, who had clearly had too much ale and salted fish.

At the market

Over lunch we read some books about Vikings, the best was Viking Raiders. Both boys love an illustrated book with loads going on in each picture, especially if it contains gory battles and excessive amounts to read. Mum and Dad less so.

We then transported ourselves back 150 million years to the Yorkshire Museum's Jurassic World exhibition where there was loads of interactive stuff to get involved in.

I drew the line, however, at filling trousers and pants with the rubber bits used to cover the ichthyosaur fossils.

More reading about Mary Anning

Two museums in one day is perhaps too much for a 3 and 5 year old (and definitely for two 42 year olds) but luckily our day ended with ale for Mum, ale for Dad (the intention was to recreate the Viking village in our hotel room), and chips for the boys (notice the Oxford Comma before and). We even managed to go to another museum on Saturday, but that's another story.

A Ferdyosaur scares a Plesiosaur