Loan box - Romans

The topic of our museum loan box session today was Romans. We borrowed some good books from the library around this subject but had not managed to read them much in advance due to Harry and Peter being ill for the last couple of weeks, so I will continue the topic over the coming weeks instead. We have been meaning to visit Segedunum Roman fort so this will be an ideal time to do it.


Harry was particularly interested in the wax writing tablet and one of our books includes a craft to make a writing tablet using clay so we will do this. He also liked the drop weight spindle, which included some wool to spin on it - we managed to work it out thanks to one of the dads who came along today with his family!


The coins depicting the image of the Emperor led us to some interesting discussions about the difference between an Emperor and our Queen.


Harry liked the statues of Mercury and the Cockerel. He is very interested in hearing myths and stories of the Gods since reading some of the Greek myths.


We held a stone roof tile, which was very heavy and I pointed out that we have tiles on our roof but that they are made from slate. Harry knew that the slate would have come from a quarry and wondered how it was made into tiles. Unfortunately my knowledge of tile making ended there so we will have to look into that further! As a boy who loves construction, Harry was amazed that the Romans invented concrete and I am sure we will be looking more at the building aspect of the Roman Empire.


This appears to have been a topic that will allow us a lot of further exploration, so hopefully more will follow in the near future.

Loan Box - Vikings

The latest museum loan box we explored today contained objects relating to the Vikings. This was good timing as we have been reading this very good book borrowed from the library recently.

We took the book along with us and compared the replica Viking clothes in the box to the pictures in the book. The box also contained wooden swords and Harry tried to wear them in the same way as the Vikings. He liked the coins, and we pretended to use one to buy a new sword from the blacksmith, as the coin had a picture of a sword on it. 


I am thinking of ways to introduce a simple historical timeline now that we have looked at a few different events and periods, which will at least give us a reference guide for the order in which things have happened.

Loan box - Ancient Greek Olympics

Tyne and Wear museums have several loan boxes, each with a theme, which contain interesting articles to explore and relate activities to. We looked at an Ancient Greek Olympics box yesterday at the Discovery museum with some other home ed families, which was good as an introduction to both the Olympics and Ancient Greece. I am planning some Olympic activities to tie into London 2012 later in the year, as I am sure many people are, so we will postpone looking further into the Olympics until then. 


Harry was very taken by the story of the 12 labours of Hercules, however, which we had researched in advance and saw depicted on pottery in the box so I am going to buy a book of Greek myth and legend to explore at home. We also liked the discus and jumping weights, having watched videos of these events in advance, and a coin bearing the image of Zeus, which sparked some interesting discussions about whether you can actually throw lightning bolts!


I think we are so lucky to live in such close proximity to several very good museums, which have great learning resources and we will definitely be making the most of them over the coming years.