historyetc – egypt, joseph and sumer

today was always going to be a busy day, and having an unsettled night didn’t put me at the best. FWIW hump day yesterday was for me, it is my lowest day i think. trying not to have a blog of sadness tho, as I am still overwhelmingly grieving but carrying on. but despite poor sleep, jumped out of bed as actually day too interesting not to put ‘get on with it’ head on.

first was Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief. my girls have always been read greek myths and legends, and SB has had quite a passion for them in the past, and we have bacchus in the garden, so they ‘got’ a lot of the greek stuff. me, i loved it. yeah, it was a bit teen smolder at times, but a fun romp with some good effects. bit scary in places, SB said it was a bit scary, but she was hugging L who was quite scared, and that made her better BB found eating another choc button made her not so scared. hmmmm, chip and block springs to mind! lecielrouge had arrived first, and we had a backrow viewing. I would def recommend the film as a PG, with it actually having some pretty scary moments. the deependers also there, as well as some other home ed friends, so quite a crowd. it was a fab start to the day

we were then slightly late back to home for historyetc, and poor G and family getting cold on drive :blush: . had decided that we would be brisk at moving on, so had planned to do a full size joseph coat first with ‘peep head’ like seaside things, so cut up fabric squares, and Z drew an outline. the children then did some pretty fab gluing on of shapes. unfortunately BB put hers wrong, and wouldn’t try again, so i left Z in charge of glue happy children, and with S and G we made a pyramid out of sugar cubes, and equanimity was restored . pasta still not being quite ready, i lay out G’s pharoah masks crafts on <3 conservatory <3 table. and a number of children got going with those, some did the colour in egyptian gods on the coffee table, some did more sugar pyramids, and SB and E got completely messy gluing sand onto card to make a Giza diorama

we had a break for pasta, and the wolves were definitely ravening prob due to lack of snack time, having been in the cinema lovely rice crispy cakes for afters as well. then, back to it! fimo scarab beetles, amulets etc in the conservatory, card pyramids in the sitting room and more pharoah mask painting in the conservatory. K did some Sumerian rules in the kitchen whilst SB and L made the most ENORMOUS sugar pyramid, and then she made some honey cake – which was yummy – mostly with bB and J i think. I think pretty much every child did most of the crafts, which was good.

We also had a stab at making a handprint tree. not sure about final effect – we need G and M to be grass as well, and a handprint of C at least to come from france, or maybe she and R could do 2 to make a quadrant as a sun?? we are thinking we might get these made into business cards as official home educators cards. perhaps using the moo free offer – we need a motto in latin and some idea of blurb to put on them? i have put the pics up there to be fiddled with by merry, as she said she would, to get best effect, and if K can do a motto we are away!

All of us then got photographed being Joseph i LOVED that! and then much rabbit adoration took place we all agreed how v tiny hamster is, tho the twin black otters are not much bigger. and Gerda is enormous . At the end of the day tho, we had to say goodbye to shadow/biscuit, who has now gone to live with her new family I am sure she will be v happy. at myself tho, when merry said she had never put 2 girl rabs together, i nearly said ours had settled in OK but obv one a boy!! some adult chatting. I have really enjoyed both historyetc sessions, and hope not just be thinking how well they work, with the children getting chance to play, chat and have fun whilst doing something relevant

BB had swimming, SB only had judo, as brownies cancelled, but we did practice the broken cords for her piano exam, and they were much better then we snuggled in front of a DVD as she felt shattered – bless, so do I! i plan to watch apprentice, and do a bit of flickring, as need to get todays photos up before Z starts nagging

photoset on flickr