Archaeology Day

Oh what fun. Let me say now, before you all switch off, it was fantastic. I loved it, just my cup of tea. the children loved it, and it was great fun!!

The background was that we [Merry, Tammy and I] had enjoyed reading archaeologists dig for clues with our children, and the children of the families thought it a great book. On meeting up for the Roman re-enactment thing a few weeks back, the children enjoyed scrabbling in the sand being archaeologists, so we thought, well why not?? And Tammy being an archaeologist……

So Merry and Tammy and families came for the day to have fun. First we covered arts and crafts, as the children painted their pots using red yellow and black [OK, real paints rather than natural glazes and dyes, but they were garden centre terracotta pots. When they are teenagers, they can make the pots as well!] this done, they hared around playing with each other on the bikes, climbing frame and indoors whilst they dried. SB, Sam and Fran also went looking for flints in the veg beds – and found loads. The ceremonial pot breakage came next – Amelie took a few goes – bless.

At this point all the children were supposed to disappear whilst I buried the pots, but SB and Sam helped out. we all helped mark out the squares – 2 test plots each. I dug the holes and they put in the broken pots, plus some hama beads grave goods [these were pre-christian!]. Some competition between Sam and SB ensured that there was plentiful grave goods!!

Lunch time – phew. Minimal trauma as pasta with help yourself toppings, so all eaten up. Second sitting for adults [after Tammy had read copiously to thechildren, the archaeologists book and moved on to fairies - Merry and I did contemplate leaving the building surreptitiously at this point, but it seemed unfair!] I got the recording things and the glue ready for the afternoon fun. Cheesecakes from Tammy [yummy] set us up for the archaeology.

As this is arable land, luckilly, artefacts are usually near the surface, and our dig was no exception [it was bad enough digging filling up 10 test pits without going too deep!]. A handy field walker [LOL] had left a clue as to which pot was buried underneath, so the children all found their pots, and started digigng. less adult help was required, and they all had a go at recording on the chart the places they had found things. Fran was the first real find – some pottery not buried by me, and also Amelie had some extraneous pottery. When each child thought all was found, we had a quick over dig and brought up a few more pieces and went to the glueing.

Glueing the pots with 5 children is much more hard work than glueing with 1!! Especially since they were tricky things to glue. I think to anyone else contemplating this bit of fun, I would suggest terracotta saucers instead. Easy to paint, and much easier to glue! Bearing with me, Fran and SB nearly completed their 2 pots. I had to admit to Amelie that half her pot seemed to be missing – and we couldn’t find it in the hole either! Tammy and Sam nearly completed theirs. Sam went to do a bit of sieving – since I had found 3 garden sieves. The others gradually went off to play. They all played together really well. [usual minor sharing traumas, but nothing major] We decided that the incompleteness of our pots [due to missing pieces and glueing trauma] was very realistic.

During this time, Josie practised her escapology tricks [rofl], and interacted with BB. They did seem to be having a game of pass the item at one point. BB asleep on sofa, and I don’t think her nappy has been changed since before lunch – Aargh terrible mother! They have both seemingly enjoyed the whirlwind of activity around them, and the interaction between them is cute.

Some chilling out and then the parting of the ways. Sb is at Ballet – having cycled there with Chris on the tandem, and BB is asleep. Peace – how wonderful!

Yep, I am flickring – its getting its own set!!!!

oh, the village lights committee came round to confirm our willingness to buy a christmas tree for over the front door, and pay for the yearly decorations. OK i said, when should I get the tree – well by the end of the month – what??? Where do you get an Xmas tree from in October???