Todays education was pretty hardcore for us. If only I could have predicted this twelve months ago.
We started with History which is fairly regular for a Tuesday morning. Not because of well adhered to timetables but because it is the day in which we visit my grandparents and for some reason that incites questions relating to the ‘olden days’. Todays subject started with cars (I think it was “Why doesn’t Nana have a car”). We I talked about the numbers of cars on the roads and a bit about speed and safety and other modes of transport. We discussed I lectured on the topic of small local shops and the sorts of foods available which lead on to the subject of larders. I quite clearly remember Nanas walk in larder so talked about that for a bit. Master R wanted to know if people had larders upstairs too and Ms R told him that houses hadn’t been invented yet and everyone lived in flats 
. As Nana lived in a large farmhouse throughout my childhood which hadn’t had much modernisation I also remember things like the outside toilet, fireplaces in the bedroom and the old fashioned telephone. We arrived at Grandmas to find her outside preening her roses (or something) and carried on the conversation with her. She enlightened us to some of the joys of only having an outside toilet and somehow linked it to how old men grow such big vegetables so I guess we could call that bit Science. She told us about bathing and about the scullery. It’s fascinating to listen to her talk of the past, she has always been a very modern grandma in my mind. Or maybe we’ve just come a full circle in some things (like breastfeeding, co-sleeping, growing your own, natural remedies etc). The Rs like to play cards at Grandmas house so we did a bit of that. First I played pairs with Master R while Ms R did something similar with Grandma and then we swapped and I taught Ms R a new game which involved picking your opponents cards to try and make a pair and trying not to be left with the odd card, can’t remember the name but remember playing it with picture cards as a child. Grandma and I had a roam around her garden which is beautiful and always in bloom. She is a tomatoholic so there are many plants on the go all of different varieties. Master R has a little tomato plant which he purchased yesterday for 50p, it’s the only thing we are deliberatly growing at the moment. The rest of our garden is autonomous.
After we left Grandma (with crayon on her tablecloth 
) we visited the stunningly beautiful reclusive gardens nearby. Usually we just race to a favourite place and I sit on a bench while the Rs run around and make ‘camps’ but today Ms R wanted to follow and fill in the childrens activity sheet on offer. She was already armed with a pencil and looked the stereotypical student with map in hand and bag on back. It had a section for ticking off wildlife that could be spotted at the pond so we spent quite a while there looking for water boatman, lily pads and the like. We saw some dragonflies too, bright blue ones and an orange one. We found our bearings on the map and talked about where North might be and why I might hold the map sideways, she didn’t have any problems following the map or finding the things we were supposed to be looking for. The flowers smelt nice, we saw some birds fairly close up (one eating a worm!) and Ms R rescued a little caterpillar who was stuck in a web and with the aid of her trusted pencil took it safety. It’s the first time she’s shown any interest in wildlife and it was like she was seeing everything for the very first time despite us being regular visitors of the garden.
On the way home we stopped off at the big pet shop. Master R found a puppy to stroke and then tried to convince both me and the assistant helping us that we should take a rabbit home. He seemed to want one very much. Ms R looked at the fish and we decided that we really needed an algae eater to join the little goldfish. Although this is the very last chance, if the little goldfish manages to kill this companion too then it will be living the rest of its days in solitude. At the very least the fish did take us away from discussing the flea cycle again.
At home Master R decided he needed to do some more school work and continued with the goldstars workbook that he started yesterday. Although he didn’t quite match the thirty pages that he did in the first sitting he did a few and clearly feels proud of himself for being so clever. Ms R made pizza (aka cheese and ketchup on toast) with minimal help and then they took themselves off to play something together.
On arriving home from work I recieved the usual picture/message from them both. Ms Rs had lots of stickers, hearts and ‘To Mummy I love you from R..’ and Master Rs was his usual scribble but today in a different colour. For so long it irritated me that Ms R wrote form instead of from but she seems to have self corrected, she also got the you right too which she’s been finding tricky. I guess it was only a matter of time before she got them right.