Hands on History

Well, yesterday was certainly a day when we all "learnt something"!

Our support group are fortunate enough to have a historian who volunteers to spend up to two days a week with our children, giving them a chance to learn about history. A proponent of the "interconnectedness of everything" school of learning, he follows every side track that they throw at him, and really brings history to life.

Yesterday we covered the Vikings. Learning how the origin of the names of our UK counties came from, how Russia received its name, why the Vikings did what they did.. a lot of it was news to me too! There were plenty of replica artifacts to handle, as well as real antlers! The boys particularly enjoyed the session on bows and arrows - complete with real, hand crafted arrows and flint heads!

Despite the fact that we have a lot of kids with attention or behaviour issues, plus ages from 7 to 15, all the children found they had the ability to concentrate for the hour long "lesson". Then the parents had a go too!

The day was long, and exhausting (lest of all for the historian) but by the end we all felt a real sense of satisfaction. It was a day of reinforcing the "rightness" of our choices as parents to remove our children from school, and for bringing home the beauty of educating our children at home.

Still, I think next time I need to look at a hall, as my kitchen is getting rather crowded ..