One of those brilliant educational days

Although it was a good day, poor Ben has been working through with a headache. He woke up with it first thing and as he'd slept in a little longer than normal, I thought perhaps his headache was due to that (that often happens to me if I over-sleep). Dosed up with Nurofen, he did really well - bless. It wasn't a taxing day work wise, not a day of nose to paper and book (as if it ever is in this house!), but we seemed to accomplish a lot - planned and autonomous.

After maths I decided to dig out all their past projects to have a read through. I was amazed at how many topics we'd covered as a family and they both enjoyed sifting through their work and commenting on how their style of writing, drawing or learning has changed in the 3 1/2 years of HE. Ben was just 6 when he came out of school and I remember comparing his work (mainly his comprehension and writing) to Katie's at the same age and wondering if he'd ever improve. Just think it - poor chap was SIX! I needn't have worried. He's doing Key Stage 3 maths, writing his own stories, comprehending so much better and, in some cases, puts his thoughts down on paper better than his older sis.

Anyway. On of the past topics I wanted to look at more was the Tudors as we're off to a Tudor day tomorrow at the museum. They loved reading their work on Henry VIII (or Hen as Ben used to write), his wives, a typical Tudor day, food, clothing, music - all that stuff. We had a look at a few websites too, just to refresh our memories. It's such an interesting period of history and we really only scratched the surface when we last covered it.

During a break, Ben decided he wanted to look at mapping and found a good website, "Community Walks" where he could find our home and other places of interest. Pulling all his info together he made his own map, adding photos/comments etc. He was having a ball hunting around the British Isles and later, further afield.

After lunch we started out weekly science - mould! Our first experiment is to place pieces of bread into 3 bags, one wet and in the dark, the other two dry but one in the fridge, the other in the dark. Our other experiment is to put bits of cheese, fruit, veg and a biccie in a glass screw top jar with a bit of water and leave that out on the kitchen windowsill to watch. We need to check the mould progress every day - will photograph our findings! We also read about Alexander Fleming and his discovery of penicillin which sparked off a discussion on ears and how we hear and then on to eyes and how we see. This then lead to finding out about concussion!

Wow, what a lot we covered today.

Also managed to squeeze in a good old run around in the park and wonder round the garden centre where I picked up a mushroom growing kit (for £2.50) and a bag of wild bird seed (so we can make our RSPB project bird fat balls).

No wonder young Ben is now feeling so poorly, I've completely worn him out!