We’ve been exploring lots of Roman forts here lately, so it definitely seemed like time to balance out all our Greek and Egyptian books with some more Romans! We’ve read about Pompeii before a few times before and it immediately captured H’s imagination, so I was really excited when I spied Escape from Pompeii by Christina Balit.
I’ve always loved visiting museums. I spent endless school holidays pottering around North Down Museum (Bangor Heritage Centre back in those days..), trekking around the Folk and Transport Museum, admiring all things Egyptian at the Ulster Museum, or even getting on the boat to the New World at the Ulster American Folk Park. One of the things I love about Newcastle is the variety of museums and galleries within easy reach – and we have missed them all so much! When the Great North Museum: Hancock reopened a couple of weeks back, H and I couldn’t wait to visit and see for ourselves some of the objects we’ve been reading about these past few months. We had such a fun time, and he asked to go back again pretty much immediately – which I happily agreed to! I’ve been pretty buried under marking lately, so being able to finally get out and about a bit more has been a really welcome change.
After our success at making a miniature paper Trojan Horse model a few weeks ago, we thought it was time for something a little more challenging. I really want to try out papier-mâché Greek vases, but H insisted we stick with what we know – so we raided the recycling, adapted a few instructions from the fantastic Hands on History: Ancient Greeks by Joe Fullman, and made an EVEN BIGGER Trojan Horse.
We’ve accidentally continued our theme from last time of “antiquity via retro kids TV” – but with a slightly different approach. Egypt has definitely been H’s favourite ‘ancient’ topic so far, and we’ve spent a lot of time over the past few months reading different books and trying out lots of excellently messy activities (we’ve even mummified a Brio man, RIP). But maybe the most fun yet has been acting out lots of very silly hijinks with Scooby Doo Adventure in Egypt from Playmobil. Yes, you read that right: Egyptian Scooby Doo! I was probably as excited as H was (maybe more).
We’re finally off to Ancient Rome, and taking a slightly retro route there first with Mr Benn Gladiator by the inimitable David McKee. We love David McKee. Elmer is a staple here and I’ve lost count of the patchwork elephants we’ve painted over the past few years, but by far H’s favourite David McKee book is Not Now, Bernard – a darkly humorous little story about a boy and a monster. We haven’t read any Mr Benn before, but this seemed like a fairly good place to start! I found this copy on a fieldtrip to Belsay Hall a couple of years back – they have an excellent second-hand book shop, well worth checking out if you’re there for a visit.
