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

The best things come in threes

The luxury that we have on Fridays is to be able to adapt the day according to Ferdy's mood. I think that some little kids (ie Ferdy) do not take much in when they aren't in the mood to learn. If we start doing something, and it seems that he is too distracted or can't concentrate, we can postpone it to later, or occasionally even the next day.

This Friday, Ferdy was not in the mood to learn. He's tired, he's very grumpy, and the only thing that he wants to do is play Star Wars with Gil, watch Star Wars or listen to audiobooks. He even took to his bed at 6pm straight after supper one night this week and spent all evening listening to Mr Gum. Ferdy hasn't been to bed before 8pm since he was about two years old.

So today we did no writing, no reading, no maths and no phonics.

Instead we went to the park and the woods all morning. We played pirates (yes, I had to join in), we did races and chasing, and Ferdy & Gil had lots of stick / light sabre fights.

In the afternoon the three of us went to see Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

 

We'd seen Hiccup Theatre doing The Gingerbread Man last year, and all of us really enjoyed it. The songs are really catchy - we still sing the Run, Run, Run song even now - and they are so innovative with the set and costumes and delightfully bring the story to life.

The Three Bears was equally engaging. Goldilocks was very funny as a spoilt brat, and the hapless three bears were charming in their double bobble hats. My favourite thing was the set made of recycled materials (the underlying message was reduce, reuse and recycle or 'make, do, mend and make better'), which, muchlike the Wombles, the bears gathered daily in the woods. I think I'd rather like to look through windows made out of toilet seats, and have a shower powered by bike wheels.

Ferdy's best bit was when the puppet baby bear had a shower (a bucked filled with bits of blue paper), and Gil's was when Golidlocks burnt herself on the oven...

I'd like to say when we got home we did lots of reading and writing but the truth is, when we got home Ferdy spent an hour making ships out of lego and then I let him watch Star Wars VII.

However, at the weekend, he wrote a theatre review, he read his whole schoolbook and I even caught him practising writing the number 3.

Back on Jan 11th.

Dear Santa

One of the great things about our Fridays, is that we can make the day into a project. On a good day, we can start with a theme, the thread of which will run through the whole day, and things he is doing at school can evolve and be brought to life by stuff we do at home and whilst we are out.

I had booked for us to go to meet Father Christmas at Kedleston Hall, so we started the day by writing a letter to him.

Surely that's not a smile Ferdy? Whilst writing...???!!!

My absolute favourite bit is the commas

We have a scrapbook for Ferdy's work on Fridays so we made a copy for him to put in an envelope and give to Santa.

Off we went.

We arrived far too early and were told that Santa was drying himself off after being caught in the rain so we went out into the garden to check out the advent trail.

All around the Pleasure Grounds, there are 24 boxes, each attached to a tree and containing an activity. It was brilliant! We had to: sing carols, (I always thought it was 'away in a manger, no crib for a bed but learnt from Gil today that it's actually 'I am a robot, no crib for a bed'); count snowflakes; test our knowledge of Christmas; guess what's in a stocking, and meet a polar bear.

And then it was time to meet the man himself.

There are so many Santas. They live in shopping centres, garden centres, toddler groups, parties etc etc. And Ferdy has already decided that they can't all be real. He's been asking things like can reindeer really fly but it's up to him to decide so I usually ask him what he thinks. He's still pretty self-centred and isn't actually that interested in my (dreary) answers to his questions anyway..

This encounter with Santa, however, felt magical. We knocked on a large door in the Stables and were ushered (by an Elf) into a low lit, intimately atmospheric room with a glowing fire and a kindly Santa at its heart. Ferdy was a bit shy (so was I!) but gave him his letter and helped Santa read it. Santa loved the picture of himself (don't we all..?), and Ferdy, although totally enchanted by him, managed to impart that we were going to be in Holland for Christmas, and that he liked Yoda.

This Santa was, most definitely, the real deal.

Gil was a little less impressed and stated very loudly that he 'don wan to see that man never again'. He also cried because his present wasn't a toy.

Then is was time for some Christmas crafts. We made an owl lantern, some stained glass very fierce robins and Ferdy also made a Octoblock Robin card (he had 8 eyes).

Ferdy really enjoyed doing the crafts and once we got a bit restless we went outside for some running around.

He loved our game of weaving in and out of the trees and trying to catch each other. I was actually a tiny bit annoyed when they both managed to catch me.. Time for lunch then.

Ever since Ferdy was 1 year old we have had to find cafes with books in.
I think I know every cafe in Derbyshire and Staffordshire that contains books

On days like these, and when Ferdy is not too tired, we can do so much. When we got home we played a numbers game grouping numbers into highest and lowest, and odd and even groups.

We've lost number 3

He even read me the whole of a rather tricky book because it was about a brother and a sister writing letters to Santa.

A fierce Robin with claws and toenails

Lovely, strong Legoland

Such are the adjectives Ferdy used to depict Legoland, where we went today. Not, perhaps my choice although I think strong is quite a good way of describing lego.

Ferdy's learning about adjectives at the moment so we wrote down as many as we could think of, looked at some books and pointed them out, and listened (quite a lot of times) to a rather catchy song from Grammaropolis about them.

We walked through the Christmas market to get to Legoland and, spotting the nativity scene, Ferdy told us all about the story of the nativity.

The best bit about Legoland was the vast scene of Birmingham which filled a whole room, and lit up when the lights went down for night time. We spent quite a lot of time looking at all the 2500 minifigures and the scenes in which they were working and playing.

Both boys also really enjoyed making lego cars and speeding them down the track.

Sadly for Mum, however, the cafe was awful so, once we'd done everything (which included going on rides, building houses and watching a 4D film), we decided to go to Birmingham Central Library to have lunch there and look at some books.

It's debatable whether Ferdy was happier racing cars down a track at Legoland (cost for one adult and two kids = £28) or going up and down, on his own, on the escalators at Central Library (cost for one adult and two kids = 0p).

The childrens' library has a huge selection of books, many of which I had to read. We also managed to find a phonics book on the sounds er and ir which Ferdy is learning this week, for him to read to me.

After a tiring day we boarded a very busy train home, but luckily for me and the rest of the people in our carriage, Ferdy (the Storyteller) was able to recount almost the entire collection of Aesop's Fables, his current bedtime stories of choice.

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