Oceans Apart

Before the world changed its course, and we only homeschooled on a Friday, we often brought what Ferdy was learning at school to life with a day out.

Last week (sorry no time for a blog) for the first time in three months, our lessons on countries in Africa culminated in a trip to the zoo and searching for African animals.

All pictures by Ferdy and Gil

This week the focus has been on the oceans and journeys around the globe, but we decided that doing a trip out to see the ocean would not be a good idea: a) because we live as far away from the sea as is possible in the UK and b) because we did not fancy parking on a roundabout and relieving ourselves in peoples' gardens.

So we didn't go anywhere.

But hey, surely we have now realised that we can experience places vicariously through other people and animals in books, songs and films.

Luckily, Andy was doing a wild workout on the beach so we joined him. We read some lovely books about oceans, (and we couldn't read about oceans without learning about the tonnes of plastic amassing within them) and Ferdy wrote a piece about giant starfish in Flotsam. We sang Moana songs from the South Pacific, and we also found a catchy tune about how to remember the names of the oceans.

Best of all though, for our journey, we decided to follow and discuss the directions of some of the migratory routes of five different animal species: a blue whale; a leatherback turtle; a monarch butterfly; a red crab and an African elephant.

Plotting the migratory routes

When Ferdy enjoys doing something, he immerses himself fully into it. Fascinated by footage of the leatherback turtles emerging from their eggs on the coast of Costa Rica, he decided to write a diary entry by one. When I pointed out perhaps he should write the names of the Frigate birds who preyed on the turtles, who was his silly Mum to argue with the retort that this turtle has only just been born of course he doesn't know what the birds are or what the name of the ocean is...  Vicariousness indeed.

The Kingdom in the Sky

Craving adventure this week, we started a new book of African Tales. Each story comes from a different country in Africa and is prefaced by facts about the country of origin.

Ferdy suggested that we learn ten facts about each country, find it on a map, look up favourite landmarks on Google Earth, then read the story.

First up was Namibia.

The boys were most intrigued that it houses the world's largest metiorite, the Hoba.

©Google Earth

We found some quirky videos about facts about Africa.

A day or so later it was Malawi, also known as the 'Warm Heart of Africa' (which gave me the excuse to have a boogie to the classic The Very Best's 'Warm Heart of Africa'; I must have lost the picture Ferdy took of this..), and finally the Kingdom in the Sky,  Lesotho, a small mountainous country surrounded totally by South Africa.

Ferdy's favourite story from our book was the one from Malawi about a boy called Makhosi who has to save his village with the help of a talking bull. On Friday, Ferdy wrote part of and dictated the rest of one of his own much loved tales from his audiobook, Nelson Mandela's Favourite African Folktales.

As retold, verbatim, by Ferdy

I was slightly stumped when Gil asked if we could go to Africa for our Friday outing, but Ferdy proposed we climb a mountain and imagine that we were in Lesotho.

So, not far away, we managed to find our very own kingdom in the sky. 

Bunster Hill: 1079 ft

The boys who have plenty of time

We read a beautiful book this week called Ocean Meets Sky, about a boy who goes to seek a place his grandfather has told him about and experiences a magical and dreamlike journey to find where the ocean meets the sky.

As well as this, our current chapter book is The Phantom Tollbooth where a boy named Milo ventures into a strange land in which everything is unexpected and not as it seems..

Most of our adventures recently have had to take place in our heads and at home, and it is such books that are inspiring and feeding our desire to discover new things and characters and words and places.

We have, however, been able to get out a bit more in the last few weeks and, although it is a bit tricky to find adventures as everywhere is rather crowded (and covered in litter) and everyone else is outside too, we found a stunning stretch of ancient woodland to explore called Hawksmoor. We had to drive for a while to get there, but Michael Rosen's Jelly Boots Smelly Boots audiobook was just the right length.

We've also managed a swim in a lake, to scoot around a lake, and to run up some hills.

On a day where we couldn't go out, we looked upwards and found dragon shapes in the clouds, learnt some of the very complicated names for clouds and we attempted to draw them.

The story of the Phantom Tollbooth begins when Milo, a bored and discontented little boy who is stuck in the monotony of life, finds a package in his bedroom addressed to, 'Milo, who has plenty of time'. In many ways, we have had plenty of time in the last few months; time not taken up by school, or swimming lessons, or meals out, or weekends away, or people visiting, or visiting relatives, or planning holidays, or going on holidays, and we are having to find ways to utilise this time in creative ways.

Sometimes this is hard especially when it rains and we don't have the motivation to do any work. It is hard when we wonder when this is going to end, and what life will be like when we can get back to normal and how on earth it's going to be possible to live, learn and work in an environment where many of our human instincts like hugging, and sitting closely, and high fiving, and comforting, and picking our noses, will be curbed.

But, having so much time is also great: Ferdy and Gil have made up so many different games, and each room in the house has become a gateway into another world or story (although I am less happy that our bedroom is where the game 'The Knights of Wonder' seems to have to take place). I applaud them for their lack of boredom and ability to create endless elaborate adventures from a combination of imagination, Marvel films and Mr Gum books.

Secret plans and clever tricks

Both Ferdy and Gil love a prankster.

We've just finished reading the Wicked Tricks of Till Owleyglass by Michael Rosen. I was quite surprised about how much both boys enjoyed it, despite it being set in 14th century Germany. But practical joker Till is their hero, just as much as contemporary mischief makers, Dennis the Menace and Horrid Henry and particularly for Gil, creator of secret plans and clever tricks, the Enormous Crocodile.

Ferdy also loved how he recognised some of the themes and tricks Till plays from other fairy tales he knows, like Hans Christian Anderson's Emperor's New Clothes, or in the story How Hlakanyana Outwitted the Monster in his collection of African Folktales.

So when we heard about Banksy's new picture appearing in a hospital this week, both boys were fascinated and immediately wanted to learn more about the elusive prankster of the artworld.

They loved that no one knows who he really is, and that he does his paintings at night ('is he nocturnal?'), and they especially enjoyed the story of the secret shredder inside the painting sold for 1m at auction.

Of course this meant that our afternoon consisted of reporters from various newspapers (played by yours truly), haplessly trying and failing to find the culprits behind the mysterious chalk drawings appearing on the walls and pathway around our garden. Who knew that one of the Banksy Brothers (apparently, Banksy is actually two brothers) wore monster slippers?

The Enormous Crocodile was one of our books this week

Asking questions

We had a better week at home this week.

It all began with a birdwatching walk; we didn't actually see any birds so Gil renamed it a 'birdlistenin' walk'.

Other activities included: planting radishes; managing to play some online maths games (our internet connection has been atrocious but seems to have improved); learning about dynamics in music (ff was popular); creating a new 'find the country / continent' game with our globe; measuring the length of things (Ferdy was delighted to find that his foot was exactly the same size as his Mr Gum book - 18cm); lots of reading (surprise, surprise) and teaching cousin Magnus about dragons.

Ferdy also pointed out to me that if his written work was based around the Beano, his daydreams about the Beano would no longer be a distraction when he was writing...

I wasn't really sure what this would entail but he decided that, for his writing - we are trying but not always succeeding to do some writing every weekday - he would ask me some questions about the Beano.

Much to our surprise, Ferdy and I realised that we were able to read his questions! Because he wanted me to answer them, he'd made an effort to make them legible. Could this be the start of him realising that there may be a benefit to writing clearly?

On  Tuesday, he requested questions from me about the Beano. I'd forgotten how enjoyable a read the Beano is.

On Wednesday he created some questions for me about How to Train Your Dragon. I like these books

On Thursday he composed some questions for me about Mr Gum. To Ferdy's delight, I only got 4/6 right.

On Friday Mum needed a day off from answering questions.

Ferdy Draws (Day)Dreams

There has been a lot about dreams in the media this week, especially vivid, some say, because our waking lives have become more dull, others because we have additional time to be reflective, or perhaps due to changes in routines and sleep patterns.

We have also been doing a lot of sleeping and dreaming in our household. Both boys are sleeping really well. Ferdy now sleeps better than ever; he has always struggled with getting to sleep and has tended not to sleep until quite late, sometimes even after us, but he currently falls asleep at around 8:30-9pm and we don't hear from him until about 7am. And Ferdy and Gil are recounting elaborate dreams involving Captain America, Dennis and Gnasher, the Hulk becoming a baby (‽) and Gil and Ferdy fighting villains in Mummy and Daddy's bedroom (Gil's best person in it was Gil).

Coincidentally, our new reading book (the one I read to the boys every lunchtime, not the one that Ferdy is reading to me aloud daily which this week is Horrid Henry's Stinkbomb, or the 16 books I have to read to them each morning), is Marianne Dreams.

I used to love this story, about a little girl who is spends her spring and summer in bed recovering from an unknown serious illness and draws pictures with a magic pencil, which come to life in her dreams. Her plight currently seems strangely familiar:

'Marianne wondered what she would be like at the end of such a long time as an invalid. She didn't see why staying in bed should alter her character very much, but yet she didn't feel exactly the same as she had even so short a time before. Somehow the feeling really ill had made a gap between the person she had been then, and the person she felt herself to be now, just as the six weeks which were to come (...) seemed to separate her from the person she would have been if none of this had happened.' (Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr)

Ferdy's dreaming has spread into his everyday life, even more so than normal.. Especially when we try to do maths together:

Me: 'Ferdy did you listen to what I just said about subtracting 50p from 77p?' Silence. Me: 'Ferdy, did you hear what I just said?' Silence. Me: 'Ferdy, are you listening?' Ferdy: 'Dennis!' Me: 'Sorry?' Ferdy: 'oh I was just thinking about Dennis and Gnasher chasing Softy Walter'...

I may have mentioned before that it's not easy to be Ferdy's teacher.

When left to his own devices however, Ferdy comes up with some great ideas sometimes even putting pen to paper without realising it's really hard work... Dreams and drawing featured again in a lovely book we read this week called Harold and the Purple Crayon,, wherein a little boy draws (again with a magic crayon) and stars in his own dream story. Ferdy decided then that he and Gil would draw their own.

It looked a little like a cartoon strip too, influenced I'm sure by the incessant Beano lessons he has been having. His favourite part was the blank page where he and Gil got lost in the mist.

We don't know what the world will be like after this, or what kind of people we will have become. But we will still have Dennis and Gnasher to daydream about, so we'll probably be ok.

Money makes the world go round

It feels a little like the world has stopped going round at the moment.

We are all still at home only going out for exercise, to shop for necessities or for medical emergencies, or to work if we can't stay at home. All non essential shops and public spaces, libraries, indoor and outdoor leisure facilities, hotels, hostels, campsites etc etc are still closed.

There is, however, one shop that has opened its doors during the pandemic: Ferdy and Gil's Food Shop.

Gil's favourite books at the moment are the Alfie and Annie Rose books, hence this new enterprise was inspired by Alfie's garden grocery store.

The Chief Shopkeeper (Ferdy) was sent on a few training courses to learn about money before the shop could open: he had to learn what each coin and note were, plus how to add them together and how to give change.

tl-bl clockwise: Alfie and Annie Rose's shop; writing prices using coins;
writing down and adding up what Mum has ordered; learning about money and prices.

After he had gained his certificate in shopkeeping, the shop opened.

I have visited the shop myself a few times and have been impressed by the amount of food in stock, not to mention the very reasonable prices; sometimes I even left the shop with more money than I'd had when I went in!

The Assistant Shopkeeper also found a singular way to maintain social distancing.

Later that week, when counting up his profits, the Chief Shopkeeper worked out that he could afford: a trip to the Asterix theme park (£37.50); a toy green lantern (£7.35); a toy skunk (£7.50); a Magnum ice cream (£2), a toy frog (£3.39) and a trip to the cinema to see Trolls (£15.99).

Both shopkeepers have confessed that they are pretty happy with the lockdown measures as it means that they get to play lots of lego and go to bed late, but they would welcome an easing of restrictions on public gatherings, and to travel abroad so that they could visit the cinema, and take a trip to France to meet Asterix.