Weeks 3 & 4: Calpol, Germs and Ancient Egypt at the British Museum

So after my last post, the family was hit by a nasty cold.  A couple of bottles of Calpol, two trips to the doctor and one unnecessary (and unfilled) prescription for antibiotics later, we're all feeling much better.  But the first flexi-schooling Friday after my last post was done with two children at home - one of them a very ill little boy indeed.  So that day consisted mainly of going to the doctor and then home after a quick trip to the library, followed by lots of reading all snuggled up together under a duvet on the sofa.

Last Friday everyone was better except me.  So V went to school as usual, and Emily and I walked to the British Museum for our Ancient Egypt day as planned.  And although I was really dreading it, it turned out to be one of the nicest days yet!

We got to the Rosetta Stone (I didn't get a picture, but here's the Wikipedia entry) almost as soon as the gallery opened at 10am, mainly avoiding the horrible crush that you usually find gathered around it.  Then we wandered through all the monumental sculptures and found a sarcophagus, which had extremely clear hieroglyphs on it, so we sat down to copy them.

Then we went upstairs to look at all the mummies, which is always good fun.  After we'd done that, we ended up downstairs again and sat for over an hour sketching a status of Horus, the falcon-shaped god of the sky, son of Osiris and Isis.  The bottom picture is a depiction of the sun god Ra taken from the centre of a tablet covered in hieroglyphs (on the left) and a giant bust of Rameses II mounted on top of a giant block of stone (which wasn't really as colourful as Emily imagined it!) with Horus behind him and the window of the gallery above.

Then we had fun trying on all the medieval knight costumes in the shop.  I bought a much-needed new mouse mat - I should say Mouse Rug, because that's what it is!  It's a bit posh-looking, but it's the nicest mouse mat I've ever used.  We also bought some postcards because I'd forgotten the camera.  I'm glad we did, because most of the photos I took of the galleries with my phone came out blurred.

We left the museum about 1pm and had lunch in our favourite little local Italian restaurant - L'Osteria 57 on Gray's Inn Road - it was a bit of a treat for us, but as we only ordered olives, a pizza and a can of lemonade to share between us the bill only came to £10 and it was so relaxing and enjoyable it was definitely worth it!

Then we went to Coram's Fields because so far I haven't scheduled in nearly enough unstructured play time for Emily.  We had nearly an hour there before we had to pick up V, and we discovered that Emily can now use the zip cord without needing any help.  We practised a bit on the 'big girl's' swings and then Emily inexplicably spent the next half an hour in a cold damp sandpit having the time of her life.  I asked her what she was building just before we left and she promptly replied, 'Pyramids!' - so there she was carrying on the Ancient Egypt theme all on her own!  I got a bit cold and bored and invented the sport of 'foot raking' - tidying up the thick layer of leaves that covered the park everywhere.  In the distance I could see a member of staff with an actual rake and I really wanted to ask him if I could have one too, but I figured he'd say no in case I injured myself or someone else, so I improvised with my feet.  It kept me warm anyway!

 

I think the day went so well because it played to Emily's strengths and it contained plenty of her favourite things: a trip, sketching, no reading and writing, eating out and going to the park!  It'd be nice to include something from that list every Friday, but I feel like we need to do the hated reading and writing parts too, so I guess I just need to find the right balance.  This week will be a day spent at home revising the last few weeks - we're helping the in-laws move at the weekend, so I'm keeping it simple to avoid getting too exhausted.  Until next time!