It’s an atrium not at Adrian!

which was my QOTD to Tarly who was insisting that the bit on the heart being cut up was part of Daddy 😆

My second QOTD was from Helen and was to do with a vital organ not being much different to a uterus but I can’t remember all of it now!

The children and I did our thankfully not very regular proving to ourselves that the real reason we Home Educate is down to our utter incapability to get out of the house in the morning. Which is down to our utter incapability to get up in the morning. I was up at 730am and had to wake both of them. I gave them breakfast while I packed a picnic and then got their clothes ready for them. Surprisingly due to the big clock in the lounge being slightly fast and me being quite sergeant major-ish about everything we were out of the house a few minutes earlier than I’d been aiming for. We drove to the library, parked the car, visisted the cashpoint, bought our tickets and were on the platform with minutes to spare albeit bleary eyed and slightly trembly from the effort 😆 .

The train journey was smooth and straightforward. They sat together for the most part, with Davies playing his DS and Scarlett watching. She sat with me for a while and we played rock, paper, scissors and then at Gatwick the DS ran out of charge so they came to sit with me again as someone vacated the seats next to me and we chatted and looked out of the window for the rest of the way. From Victoria it’s just one tube stop to Green Park so that was nice and easy too, then a brief walk to the RI.

This time they were very ready for Home Educators and even had specific Home Educators questionnaires for us to fill out and hand in afterwards. The two lectures we’ve attended have had about one third of the audience made up of HEors both times so I assume it has been popular and worth opening out to us for them. Hopefully there will be more events added to the programme next year; it’s dead easy for us to get to, science is something that seems to hold both Davies and Scarlett’s attention and it’s free – what more could you ask for?! 🙂

Helen and Elinor arrived with Michelle and Chloe not long after us and we positioned ourselves behind them. Scarlett decided she wanted to swap places so that was done with no fuss and once the children who wanted to had removed shoes to feel comfy we were settled in. Our four were certainly no noisier than all the schoolchildren in the wait for the lecture to start and their behaviour during the actual lecture was brilliant. Scarlett got fidgetty about halfway through the talking bit and came and sat on my lap but that was enough to pull her round again and she carried on listening once she had a bit of whispered explanations from me.

The lecture was Anatomy for the Terrified about the heart and was a half an hour lecture with various diagrams, props and slideshows with video about the anatomy of a heat and the various functions of each bit, followed by a further half an hour of dissection of a pigs heart, still attached to lungs and liver. The lecture was for KS2 which is 7-11 year olds and was pitched a little on the old side I would have said from my own memories of science at school. I certainly didn’t learn anything like that until secondary school. The lecturer teaches medical students and while she was a good speaker it was clear this was not her usual demographic. She was however passionate, non patronising, hugely knowledgable and keen to share her information with us which IMO is what makes for a good teacher.

The dissection bit was very good – it was projected up onto the wall behind so everyone could see clearly although we had a good actual view of her from our seats too. All of our children were utterly engrossed and Scarlett could be heard saying ‘Cooool!’ at regular intervals, unlike the school children who appeared utterly repulsed and grossed out by it! 😆 On the questionnaire all the children gave the lecture 9/10 and said it was great so definitely a success. I’ve no idea how much of it all went in but as Michelle says if you keep exposing them to stuff like this it must surely be trickling in even if they are not able to repeat verbatim straight away all that was said.

We had a brief look downstairs at the elements game which kept them all going for a good while. It’s the Tom Lehrer song played while the elements can be touched at the same time as they are mentioned. It looked great fun it has to be said. Nothing else is ready to be viewed really yet but it does look like there will be some interesting exhibits when the museum is properly opened.

We walked along to Green Park, where Michelle bought us tea and we met up with Chris and Alys. We ate and chatted while they ate and played. Scarlett fed the pigeons, Davies chased them, Elinor kept them away from Chloe. They all played in the leaves and the trees and generally had a really nice time. There was a funny moment when Davies was playing with Alys while the 3 older girls (wow, how odd to be classing my baby in that group!) were off playing together and I asked Davies where they were. He pointed out Scarlett who was under a tree and I asked him again where Elinor and Chloe were ‘IN THE TREE!’ he repeated and sure enough they were! 😆

We all walked to the tube station together and parted company. We headed for home as I wanted to get back in time for Badgers. At the tube station at Victoria Scarlett wanted to walk up the escalators as she always feels a bit nervous standing on those really steep long ones and they had one turned off. So we did – and about halfway up realised it was agony and were all struggling by the time we reached the top 😆 We got a train which was already at the platform and just meant we had one change at Shoreham which is the station before Lancing, with a 9 minute wait so that was nice and easy too. We had seats all the way and aside from a bit of careful behaviour management being needed at times to diffuse tired sibling squabbles (he will wind her up and she will bite every time :rolls:) it was all very stress free.

Home for dinner for them (Tarly had her staple of pesto pasta while Davies tried some leftover pheasant from our dinner last night which he proclaimed ‘quite nice’ and polished off all of) and then off to Badgers for them.

On the way we were discussing what they want to put on their list of things to do next year and whether they both want to continue with all their activities or pick up any new ones. Scarlett wants to carry on with Rainbows (aslong as I’m there), will do the first term of Badgers as they are doing first aid badge and she wants to do that but then she”’ revise it again at Easter and she wants to carry on swimming. Davies is hoping his name will come up for Sea Scouts as he is keen to do that but is on the waiting list and is happy to carry on with swimming and Badgers but wanted to pick up something else. By pure coincidence tonight’s session was with some local kids karate club leaders who were giving a demonstration and also recruiting new people for their classes so he has come home all fire up about that and keen to give that a go. I’ve said I will see what I can sort out for January but if I can make it happen and he likes it that would be an ideal one for him to start. Tarly said she enjoyed it but thinks she does enough already.

Ady came and joined me and we walked to waitrose and then sat and chatted in the car. Home again for bedtime stories, bath and dinner and an episode of Torchwood. It’s been a long day.