Vikings R Us

So. It has begun.

Started our Viking project this afternoon, by spending time with Emily working out what "we" already know about the Vikings (as ever, in true home educated child style, I discovered that Emily already knows a lot more than I thought she did...) and what "we" want to find out. Naturally, given Emily's previous fascination with Egyptian hieroglyphs, she was thrilled to discover the runic alphabet. She'll be even more thrilled tomorrow when I give her a set of gemstone runestones (we sell 'em) to work with ;-)

We had a good look around the BBC Schools Viking section, as that seemed as good a place as any for a general introduction to the subject. Emily didn't know the answer to one of the quiz questions (what type of king was Knut...wise and Christian or psycho barbarian?... perhaps it wasn't phrased quite like that) but she leapt up to go and get her Tony Robinson Kings and Queens book to research the answer. She's getting soooo good at knowing where to find information, and she's definitely no longer thrown by not knowing an answer (she used to be, at school). She's also very keen to find out more about Viking legends, so I think I'll be reading plenty of The Orchard Book of Viking Stories over the next week or so. I love that series; they're so well written and interesting. Emily's very into mythology at the moment. Must investigate that further at some point, maybe looking at creation stories across civilisations or something.

It's been a good day for Education with a capital E all round, really. This morning we started off well with more practice on change from a pound, and we spent ages playing a dragon/princess times table game we got from ebay ages ago...it's homemade, with a big laminated sheet and little cut out laminated questions - sort of thing you could easily make yourself if you had the time. Emily's doing very well with her times tables recently. She has the 10x off pat, and also both the 2x and 5x up to 12 and 25 respectively, and she can work out the rest by counting on in twos or fives from then on. I'm pleased with that considering we don't do (and I never intend to do) times tables 'drills' of any kind. She's figured all that out herself through problem solving and games.

After maths we did some more in the Write About Me book from the Just Write series; today it was a piece about where she would go if she had magic shoes. Just about finished that book now, so we're ready to move onto the Just Write 1. Then followed science, finding out about friction. Emily got really into an experiment in rolling objects and measuring how far they'd gone, and whether they would go further on different surfaces, and why. Recorded all that in a chart. Followed by a mad dash around the house rubbing things to see if she could feel much friction heat.

In snatched minutes, I've been reading "Those Unschooled Minds: Home Educated Children Grow Up" by Julie Webb. Very inspirational. Heartily recommended to anyone who hasn't read it - very reassuring that the people interviewed are now all happy, well adjusted adults with a wide variety of interesting careers!

Meanwhile, Romeo has turned into the andrex puppy and refuses to relinquish possession of a very chewed and scratched roll of loo paper.....

...and Juliet has finally worked out how to climb up the bookcase in our hall and therefore over the barrier stopping her from getting to the front door. Oh yes, and *this* is why packing the orders each night is taking longer than ever....