In-between Days

20 Humboldt Penguins
1 African Spurred Tortoise
7 Meercats
1 Patagonian Mara
7 Ring-tailed Lemurs
2 Black and White Ruffed Lemurs
11 Wallabies (maybe more as they had newborn joeys we couldn't see)
3 Maneless Zebras
2 Valais Black-nosed Sheep
2 Kune Kune Pigs

All seen today in the peak district.

Ferdy asked to do a numbers day today. I mentioned a little in the last blog about those in-between doing things moments, where we often seem to get quite a lot of learning or chatting done. These moments often happen when we're on our way to somewhere, waiting for something, or sometimes when we are bored or not really doing very much.

Before 10am we: counted to 100 in 10s; found a missing numbers sheet to complete; watched some videos about the 10 times table; thought of words using the digraph ng... And then played Star Wars for an hour.

Sean Bean's brill King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table was our entertainment in the car on the way to Peak Wildlife Park, and Ferdy also pointed out that king ends in ng.

tl-r clockwise: a Valais Black-nosed Sheep; Ring-tailed Lemurs (inside because the weather
was horrid); tortoise eating lettuce (can we have a tortoise please?); penguin feeding time.

The weather wasn't very nice but we were able to find (and count) quite a lot of the animals and the bonus of not nice weather is that we often get places all to ourselves. The park keepers helped us to find animals and we were even invited to join in with the Kune Kune pigs' daily walk. A tired, hungry and hurting legged Ferdy was suddenly able to race the pigs through the nature walk and around the perimeter of the whole park..

Blue gloves and Kune Kune pigs Oatcake and Potter

Over lunch we drew pictures of volcanoes and talked about how quickly you'd die if you climbed a volcano when it was erupting, and whether it would be possible to build some steps up a volcano. We do have the best conversations on Fridays.

Ways of seeing

Us, reflected in the front of Birmingham New Street

We're listening to Grimms' Fairy Tales at the moment and Ferdy can see that there are many different versions of the same fairy story. In the Grimms' (brilliantly grim) version of Cinderella, the two sisters cut their toe and heel off to fit them into the slipper, and in Little Red Riding Hood, both Red Riding Hood, and her Granny are eaten by the wolf. Discovering different versions of one thing and realising that fact and fiction can have different meanings when seen from different perspectives is a vital life lesson, especially today when kids have access to so much information from myriad sources.

This Friday we decided to visit Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. I've realised that sometimes the journeys to places, and the waiting to get to places, are actually a pretty good time for chatting and learning. Whilst waiting for our train, we did some numberwork by adding and subtracting numbers of coaches on trains. Whilst on the train, we played a numbers card game, and whilst on the journey home, Ferdy read us some of Hansel and Gretel.

At the museum we learnt a little about medieval Birmingham, bypassed the Pre Raphaelites (paintings are boooring Mummy), avoided the Staffordshire Hoard, read some books about Hanukkah in the World Religions Gallery and found Hermes in the Ancient Greek collections.

l-r clockwise: the bullring in 11c; making a collage; making a village;
pretending to be an Indian god in World Religions

We also found the Mini Museum which has lots of books and dressing up clothes, and inspired a seemingly endless game of Jack and the Beanstalk featuring an eladile and two manhorses. 

Jack buys a cow from the farmer

The cafe was next door and it took rather a large amount of willpower not to ring the bell on my table for ordering champagne.

Our time at the museum then ended with a recital in the Round Room. Ferdy's had POP UK in at school so I thought a introducing him to a string quartet may offer him a different musical perspective. I hadn't really expected them to sit through three pieces of classical music, but surprisingly they did. And who knew that Mendelssohn's Quartet No.2 in A minor, Op. 13 was about a goodie who got killed by baddies but then more goodies came along and killed the baddies (who had killed the goodie) so it was a happy ending? A different perspective indeed...

Once upon a time...

....there were two brothers.

One Friday the elder brother, Ferdy, made three wishes: the first was to not go to school; the second was to be 'magicked into fairy tale land', and the third was to watch Solo.

Luckily for the two brothers they had a (fairy god)mother who said she could make these wishes come true, on the condition that Ferdy completed three tasks:

1. Some numberwork before breakfast:

2. Read a whole story to his little brother and mother:

3. Write the beginning of a fairy story.

In order to complete his tasks Ferdy researched number bonds, read lots of fairy tales and discussed how fairy tales start: once upon a time; one fine day; long long ago; there was once.. Influenced by the fairy tales he had been reading at school, Ferdy then made up his own:

Once upon a time there were three little pigs, and one day they planted three little seeds and they had one little house. One day the big bad wolf came back but not the big bad wolf from the three little pigs but the big bad wolf from Little Red Riding Hood. The wolf saw them but luckily it was the day where the beans had grown into three beanstalks. One of the pigs climbed up a beanstalk, and the other two climbed up with him. They climbed all the way up until they found themselves at three castles, they had crawled up to the next fairytale: Goldilocks and the three bears! So then they knocked at the door of each house. A baby bear appeared out of one of them, then a Mother bear appeared out of one of them, and then out of the biggest one appeared a Daddy bear. And of course, the three little pigs knew that those bears had got weaker and weaker because they had eaten all their grass like the three billy goats gruff but this time the troll didn’t eat goats, it ate pigs. So then they climbed up, up, up the highest one of all. They stopped and they knew it was Little Red Riding Hood, so they climbed up the smallest beanstalk of all. And when they were tired they sat on a giant leaf. Then they saw that the beanstalk went up the clouds to the moon! They stopped at the three billy goats gruff but this time, instead of the troll, the three billy goats gruff were the enemies! And if you went up to them, they would charge you into the water. So the troll leapt across the river instead. The troll could leap across until there was no water or food left. Then they went to sleep. The End.

Impressed by his story, the (fairy god)mother waved her magic wand (started up the car) and transported the three of them to fairy tale land (Sudbury Hall).

The magic began in the woods where Ferdy and Gil both became characters from some of their favourite stories, first The Three Little Pigs, followed by Little Red Riding Hood. And then, before their very eyes, a row of trees transformed into a beanstalk. 

Jack killed the giant

The magic didn't stop there. All around them they realised that they were seeing objects from lots of different fairy tales:

tl clockwise: The three bears; 'who is the fairest..'; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; a knock at the door; the golden ball
from The Princess and the Frog; the woods; stones Hansel picks up; a cage for Hansel; (middle); climbing up a chimney.

They even found a room devoted to telling stories, so they made some of their own, and enlisted their, now rather weary, (fairy god)mother to read them more stories

One their way home, they listened to even more fairy stories and watched Solo. All of their wishes had come true and they lived happily ever after (until Saturday).

The End.

P.S. Our day and stories are ever so slightly influenced by Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Book by Lauren Child