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...