Archive for ‘Education’

Posts about the (hopefully) successful back-seat education of our children

Driving North to the Arctic Circle

***Delayed publishing 21-23/09/18***

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After Oslo, we spent a few days driving north. We had some nice campsites and a camp fire. One night was very cold and when we woke up the tent was covered in snow!

We visited Vemork power station. This was in one of Daddy’s favourite movies – The Heros of Telemark. It was bombed in World War 2.

We went to Trondheim and had McDonalds for lunch.  Daddy said it was the most expensive McDonalds in the world. £35!!

We crossed the arctic circle. This is at 66 degrees, 33 minutes latitude.  The North Pole is 90 degrees.  The South Pole is also 90 degrees.  The Equator is the centre of the earth and is at 0 degrees.  I thought there would be a line on the ground but there was only one in the building.

We also saw wild reindeer.

Oslo

***Delayed publishing 19/09/18***

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Yesterday we had a nice drive from Adrian’s house to a new country: Norway. We had a nice lunch spot.

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Today we had a long day in Oslo.  It was a very exciting day.

First we stopped at the Olympic ski-jump.  It was massive, but there was no snow on it.  I would not like to do a ski-jump!!

Then we went to a museum with different boats.  The first museum was about Thor Heyerdahl.  He had 2 boats. The first one was called the Kon-tiki.  It was like a raft made of balsa logs tied together. He used it to sail from South America to Polynesia.  It took 101 days at sea. Their pet parrot got eaten by a shark, they then tried to kill sharks but they never found their parrot.

The second boat was called the Ra. This one sailed from Morrocco to Barbados.  It took 57 days, and they had a pet monkey. This boat was made of papyrus reeds.  The first boat fell apart, but they made a second one.

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After this we went to see the Fram.  This was my favourite boat, because we got to walk on it. The boat was very small and it was smelly. (Daddy said this was tar).  It was the first ocean going boat with a diesel engine, just like the taniwha! You could see the cabins where everyone slept.  The beds were small and didn’t look comfy. This boat was used by Roald Amundsen in the race to the South Pole.  He was racing against Captain Scott from England.  Amundsen won the race and Scott died on the way back from the pole, only 11 miles from his camp.  Amundsen used dogs to pull sleds with all their stuff.  When the dogs couldn’t pull anymore then they were fed to the other dogs, and the men.  I would not want to eat dog.

I also saw the tent and clothes that he used. It must have been very cold.

There were also stuffed polar bears and an igloo to crawl in. Daddy didn’t fit. I also tried on a dog harness and could pull 150kg, by myself. Mummy had to pull 300kg!

After the boats we went to a park with a lot of naked statues.  It was called the Vigeland Sculpture park after the man who made them. Genevieve climbed all over them. There were men, women, boys and girls and babies.  At the centre was a pole with people piled on top of more people.

Vikings and Mermaids

***Delayed Publishing, 17/09/18***

Today we went to a museum about Vikings.  We saw 5 old viking longships that were sunk and put back into pieces.  At the museum they have remade the boats (using original materials, and methods) and you can sit on them.

We even dressed up like Vikings!

We also played a viking game called Thor’s hammer.  You had to throw a big wooden hammer at the statue heads.  Daddy was the best because he knocked the head over.  I could hit the statue but it didn’t fall over.

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On the way to Adrian’s house, we stopped past the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen.  In the real story, the little mermaid turns into sea foam not like in the Disney movie.IMG_2245

Lego House

***Delayed publishing, 16/09/18***

Today we went to the home of the brick.

This is a town called Billund in Denmark where LEGO and DUPLO is made.  It was INCREDIBLE.

There were lots of different areas in the house.  In the entrance there was a big lego tree. It was funny, because at the top LEGO men were still building the tree. There were some big dinosaurs made from LEGO too.

The house was divided into 4 areas, Red, Yellow, Green and Blue and there were different things to do in each one.  My favourites were:

  • Building the LEGO city.  You built on top of a square brick and put it in the city area.  When you put your brick down, the city would change colour depending on your brick.  And LEGO men would come and visit it.

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  • Making LEGO fish. You made a fish and then scanned it into a computer. I gave it  eyes and a mouth and then it swam off onto the computer screen! This was Genevieve’s favourite thing to do.4
  • There was a rainbow made of nearly 2 million LEGO bricks.  It was 5.6m high!IMG_2159
  • You could make a LEGO car and race it down a track. My first one didn’t work very well, but the next one was better. You could also see if your car would fly through a hoop.3
  • There were big LEGO scenes.  One had a mountain and a castle. One had a volcano, and one was a city.  There was a LEGO train.  It was very good.
  • Daddy really liked the history section about old LEGO, because he found some old LEGO sets that he owned. Like the hospital and Technic that Grandpa brought back from Germany when he was a little boy.

At the end we saw a LEGO machine making bricks and we got a pack of 6 red bricks each.  It was a perfect day.

Tower of London

Today I went to the Tower of London with my sister Vivi and daddy. Before we did anything we had a choclate muffin with our friend Brett. To get the Tower of London we had to go on two tubes and one train.

First we went to see the crown jewels we saw the Queens crown it is purple and sparkly. We saw lots of golden crowns for diffrent Kings and Queens.

We also saw Traitors gate. If  you were naughty you would be jailed for four weeks. Then you would go to Traitors gate to catch a boat to get your head chopped off!

Next we saw wire statues and ravens. Last we climbed the White Tower at the top I saw a pretend dragon with red eyes.