Conquering Rome in two days

Last week, before Ferdy got ill on Friday (hence no blog), he and I just managed to have about an hour in the Dewa Roman Experience in Chester.

tl clockwise-middle: food; Baths; a warrior in his chariot; a slave in prison;
meetingthe legionary; poo sponges; watching a drummer;
swapping hats with the legionary; holding a shield

We had listened to Horrible Histories: Rotten Romans on the way, so it felt like we arrived having already amassed a vast knowledge of these ancient warriors. We learnt that they used sponges on sticks to wipe their bottoms; that they ate hare, dormouse (ahhhh nooo), lobster, wild boar, flamingo and ostrich; that they wore NO underpants; that they went to the Baths naked (no swimming costumes) and that they washed their clothes in their pee.

As well as dressing up as a Gladiator and making me into a slave, Ferdy was thrilled to discover the poo sponges at the museum. He also delighted in meeting a real Legionary who swapped Ferdy's Storm Trooper hat for his own Roman helmet and sword and didn't even ask for any denarius...

This Friday, we carried on with our lesson on the Romans.

Picture by Gil

And because the Romans seem rather a misogynist bunch (women were not allowed to vote or fight or hold political office), and I think it's important for my boys (who have no sisters), to appreciate and respect strong women, we learnt about Queen Boudicca and her powerful army. Ferdy was slightly disappointed to learn that, despite her army being a lot bigger she was eventually overcome by the Romans (he was on the side of the Celts), but cheered up when we learnt about the battle of Teutoburg Forest in which the Romans were defeated.

He then requested that we go to Teutoburg Forest, so we did (kind of).

After being chased by Claudius's legionaries and finally taking shelter near a stream ('let's pretend it's the sea because the Romans thought that monsters lived in the sea so didn't like it'), we had a rather tame picnic tea of no flamingos or baby pig, just chocolate chip biscuits and carrots.

Later on, after Ferdy had randomly written his own Aesops Fable, and we had done some division, for Friday night family film night (a ritual introduced by the boys), we watched the very funny and at times gruesome Horrible Histories movie. Ferdy's favourite bits were the feminist anthems sung by Kate Nash as the fiesty and empowered Queen Boudicca and Gil's favourite bit was Derek Jacobi's Emperor Claudius falling off his sofa.

I don't seem to have learnt much history in school, so some of this is pretty new to me too, but I'm thoroughly enjoying us learning about history (herstory?) through its gory and quirky details.

The Romans conquered Africa, the Romans conquered Europe, the Romans conquered Britain, why did they stop conquering? 

Because they ran out of conkers....

Looking to see where the Romans marched and conquered

Fred the Frog's Adventures

Most good days begin with a story. Ours began with two.

Today's first book was Fred the Frog, a stone frog who lives in the Chinese garden at Biddulph Grange Garden. One moonlit night he comes to life and goes on an adventure around the garden with his friends, Bill the Buffalo, Dragon, Chi the Dog and Sam the Squirrel.

And because we were going to be visiting the Chinese garden, and it is currently Chinese New Year, our second story was the story of Nian, the Chinese monster and origin of the story behind Chinese New Year.

Then it was time to head out to China and to meet Fred the Frog and his friends.

"Look China is this way!"

The Victorian Biddulph Grange Garden is a child's paradise. It features tunnels, bridges, steps leading up towards little follies, ponds and lakes teaming with fish, stepping stones and a temple. One garden leads to another, sometimes through passageways and one even via a topiary pyramid.

Meeting Bill the Buffalo and Dragon

Through some upside down tree trunks, we found China, Then it was off to Egypt to find Thoth.

Left: the friends find Thoth's temple. Right: Ferdy finds Thoth's temple.

Thoth is a baboon dog and not dissimilar to Nian, according to Ferdy.

It took a long time, and oodles of tenacity from Gil (Ferdy and I were willing to give up), to find Fred the Frog, but eventually, after clambering up countless steps, running in and out of tunnels and finally resorting back to our book to check what his surroundings looked like, we did!

We also discovered fossils in the geology gallery, and got very lost so met all of the animals quite a few more times.

Eventually we found the cafe where Gil and I were treated to songs about the 2, 10 and half of the 3 and 5 times tables by another rather strange creature.

One of Fred's friends we hadn't been able to locate was Chi the Dog, and upon being informed by one of the guides that Chi had been sent away for repairs, Ferdy announced that he was going to write a story about Chi's adventures.

Chi's Adventures: After Chi ran away, he got on a plane at Heathrow Airport. The aeroplane was going to Africa. It landed; Chi ran out and found himself in a jungle. There were parrots, monkeys, lizards, chameleons and everything that you see in a jungle. Suddenly a lion came through the bushes, it sprang at Chi and... just wait and see.

Ferdy goes to work

By Guest Writer: Billy (Daddy)

Now that Ferdy is seven, we decided it was high time he started to make a contribution to the household bills. So, without further ado, he was packed off to the family cardboard tube business for his induction day.

First of all he needed to brush up on the basics like checking the tubes are the correct size. We may have to find a slightly smaller tape measure at some point because he could only just lift this one.

Next it was time to learn the correct terminology for the parts of a circle, (i.e Diameter, Arc, Radius etc.)

There is a lot of high tech equipment at the factory to get to grips with. Ferdy can be seen here mastering the latest in word processors.

Before we knew it, tea break was upon us and it was imperative to learn about putting ones feet up and how to replenish our energy with raisin bread.

As with all factories, Health and Safety is paramount and it is vital learn a few dos and don'ts. Running on the factory floor for example is frowned upon, even when a pee is about to come out. Also, it is not a good idea to walk two inches behind your Daddy and not pay attention; this can lead to crashing into Daddy's back. Learning from your mistakes is important as was demonstrated in this instance. Eventually.

Top: glue machine, bottom left: makes the tube go round,
bottom right: the paper at the start (photos and captions by Ferdy).

After all that excitement it was lunchtime. Employees are not normally supervised when on breaks but it was noted that Ferdy ate his pudding first, which is most unconventional, and may require some monitoring in the future.

With lunch over it came as a pleasant surprise to Ferdy, that on Fridays we finish at 2pm so there was just time to pack away the untouched writing books and maths puzzles before racing off home (where he was most unhappy to find that the writing book made an unwelcome re-appearance). This working lark isn't so bad.

"What was the best part of the day Ferdy?"

"When I went inside the delivery lorry."

Shifting shapes

Our day commenced with a shapes game. Ferdy's learning about 3D shapes at school and, despite putting maths in a list of things he hated about school (he's had a bad first week back so we decided to compile a list of things he hated and things he liked about school), he proclaimed that his hatred of maths doesn't include learning about shapes.

We sang a song about shapes, and we had to run around the house collecting the relevant shapes.

Spheres, cylinders and cuboids were easy, cones and cubes less so. We had no luck with a tetrahedron, and no Gil, my head is not a square based pyramid.

We attempted to draw some 3D shapes.

Ferdy also did some comprehension questions about Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which we have just finished reading. He seems to rather enjoy answering questions with a book by his side, and is getting rather adept at finding the part in the book which corresponds to the question.

Hard work completed, it was time for some shape shifting and some shape searching at a trampoline park.

tl-bl clockwise: spheres; cubiods; a cylinder; almost a square based pyramid

This was one of those rare days where everyone was too busy to go trampolining so we had the whole park to ourselves. For one glorious hour we could use all the equipment with unbridled freedom; we even had the ninja warrior assault course opened up for us. Ferdy taught himself some new moves, including landing on his bottom and then back onto his feet, Gil practised lots of balancing and they could both race, leap, jump, bury themselves, fight, slide, climb and bounce to their hearts' content. I even became ever so slightly obsessed with mastering the tightrope (I only managed half way across much to both of their delight).

On our way home, we started our new audiobook, Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. Both boys were thrilled to make the acquaintance of Pantelimon, Lyra's daemon and an excellent shapeshifter.

Ferdy's been finding this week back at school really hard; perhaps due to the excitement of Christmas, and the fact that we've seen lots of friends and family so it's seemed a long time away from school, but passed very quickly. He's very cross and grumpy with the world and no one has been able to cheer him up.

Fingers crossed for him that next week is a better week.

The Beasts of London

School was closed for polling this Thursday so we spread our flexi day over two days by doing our work on Thursday, and our activity on Friday. As it was polling day we decided to learn a bit about the election and what it means to vote, then both boys came with me to the polling station.

Ferdy later wrote his own manifesto.

...Help the animals and birds. I would go to Narnia and kill the baddies
and stop using plastic. I would read lots of books. I would make all
schools have flexi-schooling.

On Friday, we took the train to London and went the Beasts of London in the Museum of London, an interactive and immersive exhibition following the history of animals in London to how they live in the city today, narrated by the animals themselves. We met an eagle, lots of rats both during the plague and when they were being chased by dogs, we experienced what it must have been like in the circus through a sad elephant's tale and we heard the story of performing military horses whilst sitting on carousel horses.

Gil's favourite bit was chasing the pigeons which were projected on the wall and flew off when you ran towards them, and Ferdy's favourite bit was the conversation between a fox on the wall and a dog in his home and who had the nicest life (we concluded that the fox did). I was a still little too depressed about the general election (and the real beasts of London) to to have a favourite bit.

Luckily, we also went to see Michael Rosen in the atmospherically lamplit Old Vic on Saturday, who cheered us up immensely with his silly, irreverent and chair-falling-offly hilarious stories and poetry.

Bah! Humbug!

I have mixed feelings about Christmas. I feel a bit Scrooge-like about the amount of money people spend, and, particularly this year, the quantity of waste generated (dare I ask my family to wrap presents with recyclable tape rather than rendering the wrapping paper non recyclable with sellotape...? Am I brave enough to suggest looking for things second hand rather than going straight for brand new? Is it too grumpy of me to tell my children that polar bears may soon no longer exist if we carry on treating our world like this). However, I also love things like mulled wine (hic), mince pies, Lebkuchen, Christmas trees, and generally getting together with friends and family and having lots of fun/arguments..

This Friday, we went to see A Christmas Carol at the theatre.

Before we left, we learnt a little about one of the greatest storytellers ever, Charles Dickens. Ferdy has yet to discover his stories and I'm really excited for him as Dickens is truly a fave of mine. Because we've been learning something of the Kings and Queens of England (me included) this term, and because we put our tree up this week, we also learnt about the Queen who brought us the custom of decorating trees, Queen Victoria.

I told them a bit of the story of Ebenezer Scrooge on the way, which was lucky as I forgot my wallet and we had to drive all the way home to get it and subsequently missed the beginning of the play. We arrived just as Scrooge was declaring how 'every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own puddling'. A little how I felt at that moment...

The play, however was as rich and sumptuous as a Christmas pudding itself. It was dark and bleak and at times a little scary, and it was chirpy, heart-warming and fun. We laughed out loud, and we/I wept. The music, mainly Christmas carols played by the cast on a plethora of instruments, had us clapping and singing along. Both boys loved it even though the plot was a little complex for Gil who kept saying about everyone 'is 'im a ghost?'. Ferdy's new favourite character is Ebenezer Scrooge and he later wrote all about Charles Dickens.

As for me, well I came out feeling full to the brim with Christmas spirit, crooning carols and utterly in love with Christmas, Who cares about sellotape...?

God bless Us. Every one!

©Derby Theatre

Glorious Games Galore

It has rained all week this week but on Fridays we seem to often be blessed with good weather, so after attending Ferdy's Christingle service, we headed out to Sudbury Hall.

Sudbury Hall is one of our regular haunts and we can generally be found playing hide and seek in the playground, climbing trees in the grounds or scrambling up the chimney in the museum. But we don't often go to the hall itself (it's really borin' in there apparently). However, today an exhibition opened called Game On.

It was brill. You had to follow a trail around the house and in six of the rooms, there were over-sized board games to play.

We began downstairs in the Saloon with a walk on game of Dragons and Ladders. Ferdy won and Gil cried but luckily was quickly distracted by Scrabble in the Library in which we had to search out all the hidden letters and unscramble them to reveal a two-word name.

Upstairs we spent a long time in the Long Room: six tables were laid out with Lego with which we made animals and had to guess each other's creation (no one guessed mine was a tortoise). Then next door was Buzzwire which Gil excelled at. And on the same floor we played an exhilerating version of Cluedo where we had to work out, by reading witness statements, who had stolen the Lady Vernon's jewels.

In the Basement we Guess(ed) Who with the characters who used to live in the Hall, and finally there was a room full of even more board games to try out.

Despite some tears when games were lost, and a few cross words when we had to go around the house again searching for our toy rabbit and both the stamped gamecards which had been dropped, we had a lot of fun.

I think Ferdy may have been thinking about my indistinguishable lego tortoise when he wrote 'The terrifying torture of a tortoise', as an example of alliteration later.