Digging Up the Past

As we are on the topic of river, learning about its uses and features, it naturally follows that we ought to know a little about the history of the River Thames.  We also watched this documentary that takes a humourous look at some of the industries that flourished along the Thames from its source to its mouth in London.

The Thames, being the largest archaeological site in London, is of great interests to us in terms of its applicability to what we consider to be the 'practical' side of historical study, i.e. archaeology.  We watched the 10-part series of the Thames Discovery Programme to gear ourselves up for an actual exploration of the richness of the site:

Once we were ready, we went to the National Maritime Museum for an archaeological session on the Thames, just like a junior version of the Thames Discovery Programme.

The weather was quite good when we arrived so we spent some time outdoors surveying the site.

• The tide was fairly high for our purpose of going on to the foreshore for digging (photo 1 above) so our workshop leader decided that the actual dig would take place in the afternoon when the tide would be further out.
• The children were given copies of  old paintings of scenes along the Thames (photo 2) to make comparison about what they saw in the paintings with what they saw today, as well as to identify some of the landmarks that were depicted in the paintings.
• One of the landmarks in the paintings was the palace courtyard that we were standing in (photo 3), which dated back the Tudor period.
• The ground that we stood on has the remains of the foundations of the Tudor palace which was the birthplace of three Tudor monarchs: Henry VIII, Mary I, and Elizabeth I (photo 4).   We were told that parts of the Tudor palace foundations have been discovered recently on the foreshore by archaeologists so there is still more to be discovered later in the afternoon when we would dig on the foreshore.

While we waited for the tides to go out, the children were engaged in various activities indoors:

• They were given the task of putting a pictorial puzzle together, in the sequence of the source of the Thames to its mouth (photo 1).  The puzzle wasn't too difficult, but Tiger was glad that our preparation at home enabled him to solve the puzzle very quickly.
• The rest of the indoors time was spent on classifying artefacts found in the Thames from previous archaeological sessions in a number of ways:
• by materials, e.g. metal, glass, wood, leather, etc (photo 2)
• by usage: pipes, wall tiles, roof tiles, floor tiles (photo 3)
• by time period: Roman, Medieval, Tudor & Stuart, Victorian & Industrial age (photo 4)

The tides were out in the afternoon so the children spent a good two hours combining a section of the foreshore.

There was indeed a lot to be found on the foreshore (photo 1 below).

 

• After two hours, everyone gathered up their finds on to a sheet of tarpulin for identification (photo 2 above).  After the indoor session where we learnt how to classify different objects by their time periods, there was still much to learn about identification of actual finds, especially different types of tiles.
• Most of the finds though, were animal bones (photo 3).  The presence of so many bones, as explained by our workshop leader, is due to the numerous pubs and butchers that operated along the river in the Victorian times.
• Much of our find were from the Victorian period, which makes a lot of sense if you think that it was only about 100 years ago.  The Victorian dock on the foreshore (photo 4) is another evidence of the recent yet long history of activities along the river.

The day before the trip, Tiger was very concerned about whether he could keep the things he would find during the dig.  I wasn't sure what the rules are about keeping items found along the river so I told him to be prepared for the answer to be no.  He was most pleased when the workshop leader told the children that they could keep anything they found, as long as the item isn't rare or precious.  The Thames is so actively excavated that I would be surprised if anybody unearth anything that someone else hasn't already found!  Nonetheless, my boy was just excited to be able to take home his own archaeological finds.  Even if they are just a few broken tiles or some cattle bones thrown into the river by a Victorian butcher, Tiger's finds are precious to him.

When we got home, I put his finds into a tray, washed and disinfected the items several times with sterilising fluid before I felt they were safe enough to be handled.  The Thames is not the cleanest river in the world by any measure.

Once the items have been cleared of killer germs and any potential nasties, we got down to the business of sorting out Tiger's "treasures".

We tried to replicate the experience we had in the indoor classrom at the Martime Museum by first classifying the items by their materials:

Then we tried to identify them by their time periods.  The video here gives a very good overview. 

It was difficult to recall the exact information on how to use the different pottery patterns to tell whether they were from the Medieval period or from the Tudor/Stuart periods, so we looked up the information here and here.

Medieval pottery

Stuart pottery

Bones, pottery, glass, shells - all from the Victorian era

The Victorian era finds warrant a closer look, not only because they make the greatest number of our total finds but also because they belong to a time period that we can still find plenty of evidence around in England.

We found a portion of a Victorian wooden nit comb (photo above), which has to be kept in water to prevent the dried wood from disintegration from exposure to air.  How do we know it's Victorian?  Because:

1. It's made of wood so it couldn't have been from a later period.  By the Industrial Age, people have started using metal combs.
2. Being found in the river, it couldn't have been earlier than the Victorian period otherwise all of the wood would have rotted away by now.  The nit combs portions from the Roman period (that we have seen in museums) are either made out of bones or if they were made out of wood, have been found in fields, not in rivers.

• photo 1: leather.  This looks like part of the sole of a shoe.  In Victorian times most people tried to recycle leather as much as they could before throwing it away.  As such, a piece of leather would have gone through several uses from being part of an item of clothing (most probably a belt) to being the the shoe soes.
• photo 2: oyster shells.  The presence of a large number of discarded oyster shells in the Thames tells us quite a bit about the Victorians' love for oysters, as they were readily available from the pubs that operated along the river back then.  The precise square and circle cut-outs from the shells were made to use them as mother-of-peral buttons on Victorian clothing.
• photo 3: cattle bones.  From the sizes and shapes of these bones, they are likely to have come from a big animal like a cow.  The possible explanation of them being in the Thames is that they were discarded by the butchers and pub kitchens that operated alongside the river in Victorian times.  We watched this clip to learn a bit more about identifying bones from an archaeological dig.
• photo 4: Victorian glass bottle.  The thickness, opaqueness, and dark green colour of the glass are clues to it being made before the Industrial Age.  The curvature of the bottom of the glass is what reveals itself to be from the Victorian era.  In Victorian times, wine bottles were made with a concave bottom to hold wine sediments.
• photo 5: various tiles.  The pigmentation and colours of the tiles are important to identification.
• photo 6: clay smoking pipes.  These are part of the smoking pipes that were used in the Victorian times, when tobacco was first brought into England from America.  Because of the way they were made, the clay pipes found are usually broken into at least two pieces.  The picture below shows what a clay pipe would have looked like in its unbroken form:

This post is linked up to:

1. Hip Homeschool Hop - 9/17/13
2. Look What We Did
3. History and Geography Meme #91
4. Collage Friday - The Simple Gifts are the Biggest Blessings
5. Entertaining and Educational - Sept 19
6. Homeschool Review and Resource
7. Field Trip Friday
8. Weekly Wrap-up: The One with Birthdays, Flowers, and a Little OCD
9. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {September 21, 2013}

The River Dwellers

When first studying the freshwater habitat of the river, we wanted to find out what creatures live in or by the river (apart from the four main characters in The Wind in the Willows).

It is not easy to get a sample of organisms from a flowing river, so we managed to get some samples from a closed-off tributary.  As such, the experience and resulting organisms studied were more similar to that from a dip in a pond.

Using an identification sheet, Tiger identified his catch from several attempts of dipping around the "pond".

There were the usual water fleas, water snails, water boatmen, and worms (photo 1), but the most exciting catches for day were:

• a newt (photo 2)
• a dragonfly larva (photo 3)
• a great diving beetle (photo 4)

Our main animal interest from the story is, however, on the four main characters:

1. Badger
2. Toad
3. Mole
4. Ratty (water vole)

There are no major surprises when we studied these animals, until we came to the badger.

There is currently a highly-charged emotional affair concerning the badger cull in England.  The issue of whether killing the badgers is an effective way to control the spread of tuberculosis in cattle is still unclear, and I remember that badgers were a protected species not so long ago.

Caution: The clip below has a few scenes of badger shooting that some people may find disturbing.

Having heard enough of the unhappy cull, we decided to take a walk along another river.

We wanted to see whether we could find the likely spot for Ratty's home by the river bank.  There were many possible places for a water vole to call home, but we didn't see any since the river was busy on that day with boats and people along the bank.

Here's a good spot.

Here's not too bad either.

Hoping to see otters, Tiger looked hard and took notes of what he saw.

We didn't see any otter, but we saw a few things that were noteworthy.

Here's a glimpse of Tiger's notes (with his permission):

It says "sizeable fish.  Ducks are catching fish (see 1).  3" - 5" crayfish!  alive!"

Yes, that's right.  We saw a crayfish (photo 1 above).  We couldn't believe our eyes.  It wasn't moving so we could not be sure whether it was still alive.  Its claws are red, which means it can't have been the white-clawed crayfish so we really don't know which freshwater crayfish it is.

We also saw damselflies mating on the grass (photo 2), as well as many water birds (including the Canada geese - photo 3) swimming and feeding along the river.  The river looked very clean and was teeming with life, with many fish swimming in it.  The Mallard ducks, as noted by Tiger, were in a feeding frenzy.  I had not seen them behave like this before.

Tiger wrapped up his work by making a simple river habitat accordian book using the template from this book.

This post is linked up to:

1. TGIF Linky Party #94
2. Collage Friday - Latin and Fire Pits
3. Entertaining and Educational - September 13
4. Weekly Wrap-up: The One with the Curriculum Update
5. Country Kids: Blackberry Picking
6. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {September 14, 2013}
7. Science Sunday: Studying Bones 
8. Look What We Did
9. Weekly Homeschool Review and Resource Link up: September 13
10. Hip Homeschool Hop - 9/17/13

Pick a Lock

One of the river features mentioned in The Wind in the Willows is the weir.  It is a very common man-made feature in the rivers here in England, but unless one know what it is, it is unlikely that one will know why it is even mentioned in the book.

It's one thing to learn about weirs at home, it's another to go and see one for ourselves.

 

It's easier to understand the functions of the weir and to marvel at the Victorian engineering when we saw it with our own eyes.  Besides, the environment is beautifully sculptured by the presence of the weir.

When there is a weir on a river, there is almost inevitably going to be a lock somewhere not too far along.  We took a look at the old Victorian versions:

before heading further along to see a more modern version:

When we were by the lock, there were a few boats waiting to cross the lock so we stood there and watched them go by, all the while observing and learning about the workings of a river lock.

Before any boat enters the lock, both ends of the locks.

• We were at the "front end" or entry point of the lock, which was shut (photo 1 above).
• This is to equalise the water level both outside and inside the lock. (photo 2).
• You can see the difference in water levels in photo 3.  It takes about five minutes for the water level to equalise on both sides.

Once the water level equalises on both sides,

• someone from the boat will jump out (usually the boats are moored a short distance away just before the entry lock to wait for water equalisation) and open the lock (photo 1 above).
• Some locks are mechanised.  The one that we were at is manual so the man from the boat had to use his body to push open the entry lock (photo 2).  The lock will not open when the water is not leveled on both sides of the lock because the water pressure on one side will provide too much resistance.
• The waiting boat sails slowly into the lock (photos 3 and 4).
• Usually the boats are parked right up to the exit lock for easy exit (photo 5).
• Someone from the boat will close the entry lock (photo 6).  This is to maintain the water level within the lock while waiting for the water level at the other end to equalised.

• This is the view at the exit lock (photo 1 above).
• The exit lock is loosened slightly after the entry lock has been shut.  This is to allow for water inside the lock to flow out gently to the other side, to bring the water on both sides to the same level (photo 2).
• Once the water level is equalised, the exit lock is again loosened fully (photo 3).
• The exit lock is then opened manually (photo 4).
• This is to let the boat out on the other side smoothly, with the water level being the same in the main river as it is inside the lock (photo 5).
• The boat leaves the lock and goes on its way (photo 6).

You might make more sense of how a canal lock works by looking here, or from watching the clip below:

Usually, when there is a river, there would be a mill nearby to make use of the river's power.  We did not find any working mills along the section of the River Stort where we walked so we read a book about the workings of a mill instead:

A visual look at how the mill works always helps:

We also found the history of mills in Europe to be quite interesting, and unsurprisingly similar to how mills were used in the past in England:

Tiger tried to make a weir on his patch in the garden using mud, sand, and stones.

As shown in the clip below, his idea didn't quite work out because the sand was washed away by the water so it didn't create the cascading effort that he was looking for:

This post is linked up to:

1. History and Geography Meme #90
2. TGIF Linky Party #94
3. Collage Friday - Latin and Fire Pits
4. Entertaining and Educational - September 13
5. Weekly Wrap-up: The One with the Curriculum Update
6. Country Kids: Blackberry Picking
7. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {September 14, 2013}
8. Look What We Did   
9. Weekly Homeschool Review and Resource Link up: September 13
10. Hip Homeschool Hop - 9/17/13

From the Source to the Sea

Since The Wind in the Willows is set by a river (the River Thames), I thought it would be interesting to have a little knowledge about rivers.

We did an experiment to show how water naturally wants to meander (which extends to the bigger scale of a river's meanders).

We went through the "Revise" and "Test" sections here to learn about the physical aspects of the river.  I would advise skipping the "Video" section because, after watching two of the videos, we found them to be unnecessarily dumbed-down and annoyingly insulting to the viewer's intelligence.  We learnt so much more from the documentary below:

In order that Tiger see the physical characteristics of a river from source to mouth, with its beautiful meanders, we went to Cuckmere Valley to see just that of the Cuckmere River. 

Standing at the high point of the valley (where the chalk white horse is located), we could see most of the river.

My camera doesn't take panoramic views so I can only show the meanders to the mouth, but I've taken the clip below to show a better view of most of the river:

This post is linked up to:

1. Hip Homeschool Hop - 9/10/13
2. History and Geography Meme #90
3. TGIF Linky Party #94
4. Collage Friday - Latin and Fire Pits
5. Entertaining and Educational - September 13
6. Weekly Wrap-up: The One with the Curriculum Update
7. Country Kids: Blackberry Picking
8. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {September 14, 2013}
9. Look What We Did 
10. Weekly Homeschool Review and Resource Link up: September 13

2013-2014 Curriculum

Every now and then someone will ask me which school year group Tiger is in.  Since Tiger has always learned at home and we work at his pace in different areas to cater to his asynchronous development, it always takes me a while to answer this question.  To those who follow the traditional school approach, a mother who can't rattle off the school year that her child is supposed to be in instantaneously looks slightly lame.  To make life easier for myself (so that I don't have to go into a discourse of how my son is all over the place in terms of what he is learning), I found the Grade Equivalents table which will no doubt be of enormous help to the next person who asks me this question.  So, for the academic year of September 2013 - July 2014, in the conventional school system, Tiger would be in the equivalent of:

• Year 4 (in UK); or
• Grade 3 (in USA); or
• Primary 4 (in Asia)

Grade level is quite meaningless around here, to say the least, but that'll do for now.

To sum up what I foresee as the way forward for our homeschool in three words: integration, relevance, engagement.

If I saw the previous academic year as a year of change from a structured learning environment to an autonomous environment, the coming academic year will be one of an increased application of the living principle whereby we strive to make more connections among different subject areas.  That also means that we will be slowing down and going into deep learning, rather than skimming over the surface of many areas and ticking boxes to show "achievements".

We shall enjoy the process of learning rather than rushing through anything just to 'get it done'.  Therefore, we may not have a lot to show in the coming year in terms of output -- which is going to be hard for this results-oriented mum -- but that's only because we are switching our focus to the joy of discovery and to obtain a real understanding of whatever we are going to learn.   I don't think learning through discovery can be rushed, certainly not in the same way as spoon-feeding the student with answers or the right formulae can.

A large part of my own growth from the previous year has been to recognise and honour the interconnectedness of various aspects of what we were learning as parts to a whole picture of life, rather than disjointed, artifically-separate "subjects".  As such, I am putting forth a broad scope of what Tiger and I will be covering from September 2013 to July 2014 in themes rather than specific curricula materials.  If our Marco Polo study is an indication of the scope that we can achieve for a topic/theme, then it makes more sense for me to plan in terms of broad themes. 

1. The Wind in the Willows (finishing up from the summer)
2. Marco Polo (carry on from where we have left off before the summer)
   
3. Magic (we'll take time out around Halloween to do this)
4. Explorers (if and when we complete Marco Polo)
5. Mystery (postponed to next summer)
   

Now for the specifics for 2013-2014, where applicable:

1) Language Arts

• Spelling: All About Spelling Level 3

• Grammar: Grammar Games and Activities that Boost Writing Skills

• Literature, Vocabulary, Writing, Poetry

The biggest area of integration for the coming year is in language arts.  Even though we plodded along with grammar, vocabulary and other aspects of language arts last year, it became obvious to me by early spring that a segregation of topics only resulted in busywork for us.  That took the joy out of what should be an enjoyable learning journey, since Tiger loves languages.  Therefore, this year I am going to adopt the Brave Writer Lifestyle, and slowly work towards a fully integrated language arts programme via The Writer's Jungle.  This book contains many gems that can seem overwhelming to implement all at once, so I am taking my time to introduce one element at a time.  For the specifics, we will be using

1. Friday Freewrite
2. Poetry Teatime
3. Nature Journaling
4. Partnership Writing
5. fortnightly drama class*
6. monthly literature and creative writing club*
   

2) Other Languages

• Chinese: Details in Planning: Foreign Language.

• Latin:  

1. Cambridge Latin Course 1
2. Latin for Children Primer A 

 

3) History, Geography, Maths, Craft, Science, and Nature Study

• theme-based study using various resources
• weekly general science class*
  
• weekly chess club* 
• monthly Young Archaeologists Club*
  

4) Art
Details in Planning: Art.


5) Music
Details in Planning: Music.

6) Sports

• weekly tennis club*
• monthly swimming

7) Life Skills

Details in Planning: Life Skills - Cooking.


* external classes


This post is linked up to the iHomeschool Network Not-Back-to-School Blog Hop: Curriculum Week 2013.


**Update in January 2014: Our plans have altered a fair bit at the half-year mark.  Please refer to the termly plans for the changes.

It's September...

Every year, when we see the following, we know it's time to start the new academic year:

We've had a really good summer this year and we really don't want it to end.  We want to extend the times to lose oneself in nature,

(Would we still have time now to lose ourselves watching these little creatures?  I think so.)

time to be by the sea,

time to be with (school-going) friends and family,

 

time to just play,

 

and time to bond.

 

I am extending our summer by continuing to work through our Wind in the Willows theme.  And guess what?  I'm not even overly concerned that Tiger isn't starting Year 4 on Monday, September 2nd.

Maybe we've been enjoying the summer to much to really think about making a full-swing start to the new academic year, or perhaps I am getting increasingly relaxed (or just laxed, depending on how you see it) about Tiger's learning process.  There doesn't seem to be a clear cut-off/starting point to mark when learning happens and when it doesn't.  I'm finally understanding and experiencing the term "holistic learning" or what it means to "learn all the time".  The process of learning-all-the-time looks different for each child but it is there if you observe your child with an open heart and an open mind.  I hope each parent recognises that in her child so that no one needs to feel stressed about not keeping up with anyone else (e.g. another child's progress, or the next homeschooling mum's superbly organised lessons, etc).

Meanwhile, we are easing ourselves back from the relaxed pace of summer to lessons.  Homeschooling activities near us have begun in earnest -- if you thought I was organised, you should meet these homeschooling mums!  It is very good to see familiar faces again and to feel the motivation (or pressure?) to get back to work.

This week at home we grew cress.  It was supposed to go into our sandwich, but we decided to put it in soup instead because Tiger decided that he couldn't possibly stomach a cress sandwich.

For someone who has consistently faired poorly at growing plants, I have found growing cress to be highly satisfying.  It is a foolproof way to introduce children (and non-green-finger adults like me) to growing food.  Just look at the results:

Already starting to sprout within an hour of planting.

Day 2 - shoots and leaves!

Day 3 - standing tall.

Day 4 - a cress jungle!!

For someone with little patience and who loves quick results (that's me), watching the cress grow made me feel really successful.  I was almost sorry when we had to harvest them.

Scene of carnage - after harvesting.

This post is linked up to:

1. Entertaining and Educational - September 6
2. Collage Friday - Memory Work Extensions & More
3. TGIF Linky Party #93
4. Weekly Wrap-up: The One Where I Finally Got an iPad
5. Country Kids: A Tree Top Challenge
6. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {September 7, 2013}
7. Hip Homeschool Hop - 9/10/13