England week 6

In fact it has been a very gregarious going out and about type of week DH might have some photos of things on his phone that he may or may not put onto flickr. He may, or may not, blog himself - awaited eagerly :)
Monday
actually BB was v tired, so only FrB and SB took part in the all day workshop on mediaeval history/england. SB has mostly come back with lots of facts about weapons and how to spot the different imprints in skulls! Both girls really enjoyed this session, and they met some new home educated kids of their age, so again very happy.
In the evening, ballet this time was the open session where parents can watch, so we have photos. SB is working towards grade 6, she has only just started as was in france for 6 months. The ballet teacher was happy for FrB to just join in at this level as she is quite athletic, works sensibly and is doing very well. [I do need to add FrB has a character skirt, but she pulled the button off it when putting on, so isn't wearing it in the photos!]

Tuesday
This was some bookishness in the morning, and botany group in the afternoon. They were taking and growing on cuttings.

Weds
A weds4ed day. We did some artwork based on chinese artists resistance. They are seen as not important and vanish. Ao we took our portrait pictures - mostly the tracings rather than the photos - and 'vanished' them by camoflaging. Science was all about the eye and reflexes, vision etc. general musicianship music went on, board games and minecraft. we did an added activity - we started to learn some basic chinese words and intonations.

Thursday
morning was bookish, and multisports in the afternoon - a local home ed sports group that runs fortnightly, enjoyed by all the girls. i was very late home as had a meal out at work to celebrate recent successes - very nice! [i forgot to take photos]
Friday
is the conservation day. The girls were clearing nettles and some other wild plants [weeds] from an area, I think the plan is for it to be seeded with butterfly or bee attractants, but I need to check that with DH! SB managed to badly cut her finger on the new knife tho.


 

The weekend -As we all know, we are doing a mad dash through the history of Britain, and this does mean a mad dash to various iconic places when we can. So this weekend saw us crazilly driving to just outside Bath to a travelodge on the friday, ready to experience roman and georgian Bath the following day, and then revert to prehistory for sunday! A bit of a kerfuffle over bedrooms, they were on different floors, and the girls weren't initially very cooperative with different sleeping desires, so left me sharing a room with all 4 kids, and DH having his own room. I read them to sleep with the adventures of flavia gemina [cunning plan :) ]
SO, into Bath, and first stop the Roman Baths of Aquae Sulis. Excellent! we enjoyed the earphones, all are better if you take headphones to plug into them tho! It has a variety of stories and levels, and I sometimes listened to childrens, adults and the travelogues. I gained a lot of insight into the baths and hope the children did too. Certainlly the fill in trail helped them to follow things. Clearly, we *did* all touch the water - used my foot, and got the girls to wash their hands! We also drank the water from the drinking tap so safe. I liked it, but the girls didn't! We threw a coin for good luck. I just think being able to walk sites like this is wonderful, linking us to our past.

We had a lovely lunch and then did a bit of shopping in the streets - mostly window shopping!

Finally we made it to the Bath Assembly Rooms and the fashion museum there. The museum is a nice little bijou number, and the assembly rooms are good to poke your nose into, but the best bit for the kids was the dressing up section :)

Back to the car, BB was exhausted! We drove around Bath to look at the architecture and famous buildings and then drove to the travelodge nearest stonehenge. As we drove past Stonehenge FrB commented on how small it looked! A nice meal in the little chef, the same bedroom get up as the previous night [sigh!] . I did make them do some home ed on Romans as our history project tho :) .


We all thought the audiophones were a little too detailed for the kids, so they stopped listening altogether. Well, SB listened! But were informative. We were there very early on a cold blustery day, so had much better view of the stones and walk around as it was only later the tour buses started to arrive. It would have been nice to have got there pre-opening to actually walk up to the stones, but this is difficult with kids! [note SB's new bag :) ] you get a closer view from the other side, as here we are close to the heel stone. The information room back at the carpark was good. I really enjoyed the 360 video display through the ages, well, I did until some kids started to make shadows on it - who knows who they belonged too! The interactive display was just about perfect, as small enough and clear enough for the children to read all the bits. It is a shame that the village exhibit wasn't open yet, think that will be a great addition. We picniced for lunch and then went on to Old Sarum.
I am currently lacking pcitures for here, as they are trapped on a memory card that doesn't want to be read - hopefully dh can sort it out! However, it was very very windy! was sure we would be blown off the hill fort ridges - luckily werent - and we had a good old wander about, both the prehistoric hillfort, and the norman conquest keep that was added, and the ruins of the first cathedral [later moved to Salisbury. When suitably windy and slightly rained on, we went to Salisbury and perked up at Cafe Valerie with nice cakes and tea/hot choc according to preference :)
We finished the day and the weekend off with a stop off at the Uffington White horse - bronze age - on our way back. It was still very windy, but a nice brisk walk from carpark, and girls loved exploring.