This Week at the Kitchen Table

Back to Numbers
This week we returned to the topic of numeracy, having spent well over a month on nothing but literacy with the odd splash of science and play dough modelling thrown in for good measure! No, but seriously, we have been concentrating very hard on raising the boys' standard of literacy and I'm now satisfied enough with their progress - D. roughly a year ahead of what he would be doing in school right now, and M. working at a very satisfactory level considering his disabilities - to feel able to move on and change topic. So it's back to number work!

This move has not pleased the boys, who have grown perhaps a little too comfortable with their writing worksheets and daily reading tasks. The first few days back at the numberface has thrown them off balance; there's been the odd scene of outright rebellion, with occasional cries of 'I can't do this!' so that additional help and support from me has been required most days to complete their tasks.

This may not sound like much fun. And I know there's a lot of emphasis in home schooling circles on work being 'fun'. But, frankly, if I only ever gave the boys easy things to do, there wouldn't be much advantage in doing them. I think children - and adults, in fact - learn most when they feel the most challenged. Often, it's only in feeling uncomfortable and then slowly realising we can cope after all that we begin to make personal and educational strides. Too hard is counterproductive, of course. No argument there. But just tough enough to demand full concentration and the finding of new solutions sounds about right to me.

Besides which, after a week of numbers, they do seem to be enjoying themselves far more than when we started! I think they were just out of practice ...




Ideas for Maths-Related Home Activities
To complement the number sheets they've been doing - i.e. actual written sums, adding up to no more than 12 - the boys have also been using their maths skills in the following activities this week: baking bread, making chocolate rice crispy cakes, planting seeds in our new mini-greenhouse, playing 'shop' with a plastic till and assorted food tins and packets, and using a builder's measuring tape to measure various items around the house so we can talk about area, width and height -- plus which furniture will fit into a particular space, and which won't!

An added advantage of this was talking about shape and space: beds and doors as rectangles, windows and work-tables as squares, the relative scarcity of triangles, ovals etc. about the house and garden.



The task of drawing a garden windmill we bought on our trip to the seaside last month also came in handy, maths-wise, as each individual windmill on the stick was made up of a spiral inside a circle, so we were able to discuss those shapes as well! I think the boys also found it a relief just to relax and do some painting and drawing for a few hours after working hard at their maths.


A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body
We've also pushed on with our healthy eating regime. The boys are now always asking 'What's in this food?' when their dinner is served, demanding to know ratios of vitamins and minerals, calories, fat and fibre.

This has led us on to discuss percentages and how they work, as seen on the sides of many food packets now. So even lunch time can become maths time for a few minutes before they start tucking in!



This quick and easy-to-make lunch consists of a warmed wholemeal pitta bread, stuffed with cheddar cheese, baby spinach, lollo rosso & rocket, and served with a helping of fresh banana & strawberry fruit salad sprinkled with walnuts and sunflower seeds.

Our Watermelon Poem

Watermelon Smile

If I eat watermelon seeds
will they grow
into watermelon trees?

Will they grow in my tummy
and make me feel funny?



Will my face turn red
in a watermelon head?

Will my smile grow wide
with watermelon pride?

Will I splish and splosh
or swish and swosh

wherever I walk
with my watermelon talk?

I think I'll leave
my watermelon seeds

but I might eat one -
just for FUN!

Our Trip to the Anglo-Saxon Reconstruction Village at West Stow

Last month we took a two-day trip from the Midlands across Cambridgeshire into Norfolk and Suffolk. One of the best places we visited in this brief trip was the Anglos-Saxon Reconstruction Village at West Stow. This is a small portion of an Anglo-Saxon village reconstructed on an original site where many artefacts have already been found. The work was supervised and carried out by archaeologists and other experts using traditional methods and trying to get the reconstructed 'village' as close as possible to how they think the Anglo-Saxons might have lived.

The kids absolutely loved their trip. We bought some handcrafted kids' swords and bows and arrows in the shop, for messing about with afterwards in nearby Thetford forest, plus some books on runes and Old English. Here are some photos from our day at the centre:



The village consists of five or six buildings in a loose cluster: individual huts for living and sleeping in, such as the one pictured above, a larger meeting house, and several crafts buildings such as a hut for spinning and weaving wool on looms, a hut for firing pots and woodworking, for grinding corn, and also some covered or open areas where animals could be kept.




The kids enjoyed pretending to cook around this open hearth. People used to think there would be a hole in the thatch, rather like a chimney, for smoke to escape, but this is now considered unlikely. I presume smoke would simply have drifted up and slowly out through the thatched roof. Those Saxon huts must have been very smoky places on a windless day!



The huts are mainly constructed of wood, with the typical thatched roof you can see in the picture. Some are different styles, constructed as experiments to see which style of housing would be most practical and provide the most likely explanations for some difficult questions the archaeologists wanted to answer.



One of their main problems was the existence of a mysterious pit excavated underneath each original Anglo-Saxon hut on the site. Various explanations for its use were considered, but in the end, the archaeologists have decided to remain open to ideas on that score, as it's hard to prove definitively what the pit was used for.




The roof beams were probably used for hanging dried food on (for smoking, perhaps, over the fire) and also for general storage of equipment, such as nets, household goods and cooking utensils.

Here's a lovely atmospheric shot of M. lurking behind a hanging pot on one of the raised 'sleeping' areas. As you can see, it's very dark inside these little huts, especially with the fire unlit and the door pulled to.




Still, I'm sure that with the fire crackling nicely on those long dark evenings, and an enclosed bed of rushes and perhaps even furs to retire to after the last chores had been done, and perhaps a little poetry had been listened to, an Anglo-Saxon hut would have felt like quite a cosy place, even in our British winters.




The wool-crafting, woodworking, corn grinding and pot-firing workshops would have been built apart from the living quarters, as they are now at West Stow. There were also areas set aside for corn and other crops to be grown and for animals to graze, with probably a small pig-sty of some description on the site. Chickens would have had the run of the place, and some of the more vulnerable animals may possibly have spent the worst of the winter indoors with the villagers!



The Anglo-Saxons used a Runic Alphabet for some of their writing, particularly when commemorating something important or when writing on a sacred object. This is a Rune on the doorpost of one of the houses ... I do have a translation of these runes somewhere, so will have to look up what this particular one means!



It was a fantastic day out and, if you're a history hound, I can thoroughly recommend the trip. Take boots for the mud on wet days though, and a picnic if it's fine weather! There is a cafe there but eating al fresco under the trees, surrounded by new oaks, is a lovely experience after visiting the Saxon village. And if you go into the nearby forest areas, be prepared for some Blair Witch Project scenes in the woods afterwards. Here's D. in the woods, being a Saxon warrior as he wields his new wooden broadsword ...