One word? When seven would do…

Because we’re all about the museums this week, us :).

We needed to return the geology loan box and so last week when trying desperately to coordinate diaries with Julie we decided to meet up at Littlehampton museum to do that, get together and all have a proper look round the museum too. I had pre-warned her we might be running late when she rang me just after 8pm last night as we walked in through the door.

Davies and Scarlett were still eating breakfast in pjs at the time we should have been leaving so we were nearly half an hour late getting there. Fortunately Julie had also been late and not long arrived and then gone into the museum to find out about parking discs and was coming back to her car with one for her and one for me when we arrived :). So free parking for the museum and also it works in the carpark we usually use when we visit the shops there too, so hurrah :).

We returned the loan box which Julie promptly enquired about borrowing and ended up taking away with her when we left. The receptionist was really friendly and remembered us from last time and directed us to an area with quiz sheets for the children. The museum is basically just a series of four small interconnecting rooms but has a nice friendly feel to it, plenty of interesting very local exhibits and we easily spent an hour there. We watched a short film about lobsters and then all the kids decided to do an Archaeology quiz sheet. Jack impressed us all with his very fluent reading although interestingly his writing is nowhere near caught up – Davies is completely the other way round. We all worked through the quiz together and Scarlett, Davies and Jack all wanted to do all the writing themselves, Maisie was less keen really.

I took a few pictures of the kids infront of things they wanted me to capture and only realised on the way out that there was a sign saying ‘No photography’ – oops!

The kids got their quiz sheets ‘marked’ by the curator and then they all got something small from the little selection of gifts – Scarlett chose a purple feather ‘quill’, Davies and Jack both chose pencil sharpeners in the shape of ballistas and Maisie got some replica coins. The receptionist was testing Davies on how much change he should get. We felt like real proper Home Educators visiting museums, doing quizzes for literacy and history and using the gift shop to get practical numeracy in to the day ;).

And Scarlett had proper shoes on too!

We’d intended heading for home but Julie picked up a leaflet for the Look and Sea centre and so we decided to join them there. We drove round and parked (disc didn’t work for that carpark 🙁 ) and went in via the restaurant which we deemed too pricey and too full of ladies who lunch for us to feel comfortable there. The Look and Sea place is really good. It’s not free but was only £1 each and is set out over 3 main floors – the first floor is a conference room so was out of bounds but the second floor is a very hands on activity bit with games, video clips and other stuff to do.

Davies and I played a game of a snakes and ladders style board game themed with fish and other sealife. Scarlett spent ages playing with a matching the birds to their habitat game which made the relevant birdsong noises when you got it right.

We then went up to the top level which has an outside viewing platform which was closed today and a further higher area accesible by spiral staircase with a telescope for a great 360 degree view of the sea and the downs.

We walked into town to get some sandwiches for lunch and then parted as we needed to get back for swimming. Really nice to spend a few hours together 🙂

We got home and I got some beef in the slow cooker in red wine for our dinner later while the kids got the geomags out and started playing a complicated game with them. Then it was back out again to swimming. I was really pissed off to get the forms to say they are both staying in the groups they are in :(. I think Davies is fine in his group although he clearly could go up a level. He got his 10m badge and had a really good lesson with some excellent swimming. Scarlett was so by far the best in her group and I sat there getting more and more cross about her not being put up for next term. She got her 5m badge and her ‘octopus 2’ badge (not even sure what that means – ah ok have just googled and am now even more cross!). The actual instructor is not the one who grades them for next term anyway and I didn’t want to talk to her while I was pissed off or encroach on the lessons of the next lot of kids so I’ve emailed asking if she can change classes as she has been put down for ‘non swimmers’ still and she clearly is no longer a non swimmer if she’s getting her 5m badge! Grr.

I hate the badges – I hate the whole extrinsic reward thing, I hate sewing them on, I hate the fact that a silly cloth badge is intended to mean more than the fact they can swim (which btw it doesn’t, certainly not for D and S and I’m guessing not for many kids really) but most of all I hate that they charge £60 a term for swimming lessons and then want another £2 on top for badges, which won’t be costing them any more than about 20p each either. I did buy them because I didn’t want to belittle their achievements having been so ranty about their lessons and also it does impress my parents who are the ones paying for the lessons but I ranted further at the receptionist who said she totally agreed with me that they should be awarded the badges free when they reach those levels. I added that rant to my email too though.

The kids asked for fish and chips for tea which they often do when we’ve been swimming so we walked to the chip shop for those and came home. They ate all their tea and then carried on with their geomag game for a further hour.

Ady came home, we read the WBD Mr Gum book as Tarly hadn’t heard it previously and then they went off to bed. Ady is being TVs Adrian Goddard tomorrow evening so he went off for an early night and I watched Maid of Honour which was fairly crap but mildly entertaining. And stewed some more about swimming lessons.