Once upon a pyramid - invertebrate cats and hibernating hedgehogs

 For our Mum-reads-aloud book we are reading the Animals of Farthing Wood at the moment. It was written in 1979 but its theme, about animals who have to leave their homes because their wood is being bulldozed down for more homes to be made, is strangely pertinent.

The vocabulary in the book is quite sophisticated (for all of us) and a lot of words need explanation. So we decided to get out the dictionary this week and look up some of our new words. Ferdy then wrote them out on some new paper which we are trying in order to help his letter formation.

We like animals to be the theme of the day; Ferdy is learning about vertebrates and invertebrates at school, and Gil is learning about autumn and hibernation, so where is the best local place to go to see animals? No, sadly not the woods, but Derby Museum..

Derby Museum is a place we often use as our Friday classroom. Ferdy is also studying the Egyptians so we started with the Egyptian mummies.

We got a lecture from our impromptu tour guide (Ferdy) about how people were put in bandages before being placed in the coffin, about how the head was a jackal head and how kings were buried in pyramids. To our great astonishment we even found a mummified cat.

In the nature gallery we discovered vertebrates and invertebrates, and Gil looked for animals that hibernate.

We even spotted a hibernating butterfly (a red admiral), and we also talked about the migrating butterfly, the Monarch.

Later on, Gil drew a hedgehog with the legendary Art for Kids, and Ferdy taught him to add up to ten on his fingers and wrote and dictated a story about an Invertebrate Cat. Thanks to Derby Museum, we could bring together English, History, Science and Art, not to mention the Maths we used to work out how much crisps cost in the cafe, and the Music we listened to in-between times tables at home.