War Memorials and New Species

This morning our Group visited the Royal Naval War Memorial at Gillingham, together with our visiting Flats. The children seemed to enjoy the visit, and took rubbings of inscriptions that matched their surname. This will provide them with some further project ideas - looking the people up on the War Graves Commission site and then maybe finding out more about them and the ship they served on. Our lads found a Newstead who was a quartermaster in the Royal Marines.

In the afternoon, W set up a great game with the Shrek characters and our visiting Flats. I was ordered to play with him, which seemed to involve him telling me where to put my characters, and telling me off for getting it wrong (guess he's learnt how to "play" from his older brothers!).

Meanwhile, J had been working on some K'nex creations of his own. These had been inspired by several documentaries that he has recently watched, including a fascinating one today on the Grand Canyon and the creatures that live there.


First, we have the Marchasaurus. These animals are very flexible. The males are dark in features, and rise up on their hind legs to fight, whilst the females are paler. J has worked out their habitat, food source and history :

Secondly, inspired by the birds he saw that live in the Grand Canyon, we have the Nevercrossadactyls (!) - again, complete with habitat, history, mating habits and food source. I was very proud of his efforts and have enjoyed watching him create his creatures. They are now being woven into a great game.

I have also been informed that J wants to go on holiday to visit the Grand Canyon!

I'm hoping to bundle the kids up quickly and early to bed as I've come down with one of my migraine headaches. I've dosed myself up and managed to keep it at bay but I am losing the battle. Off to bed!