Christmas 2014

KuMerry Christmas everyone! Today we opened our presents in excitement. With a smile on my face, I got 3 bars of chocolate, an iPad mini, two hats (a roast turkey and a reindeer) and I got lots of books on cooking and 1 loom band one. 

Here's a photo of us with Santa. 

Every year we get a photo since we where babies. Mum puts it in a big frame all together.

Here's us and our Christmas breakfast. It's smoke salmon eggs Benedict with fruit, tea and orange juice. 

Here's me in my hat we always wear funny hats on Christmas.

Here's me and Lilly in my funny hats for our Christmas lunch. 

This Christmas was different to the ones we have in Australia, mainly because it was cold and we had no friends or family around. 

Pantomimes - Mother Goose at Salisbury

Did you know that Pantos are performed near Christmas?

The characters which are normally in a Panto are a dame (who is a man) a hero and girlfriend and a grumpy man. There is always a fairy and a devil.

A Panto is different to normal theatre because is has a lot of participation with the audience and they yell at things like "Watch out" and "look behind you". It's acted as a normal play but the girls are usually men who have sh*t make up and terrible clothes. It's so obvious that they're men but the play goes on This was fun and is very English.

Today we went to a pantomime called Mother Goose and its based on a story called Mother Goose. It is a fairy tale about a fairy who has to do a good good deed every year. She helps Mother Goose who is poor and sends her a goose that lays golden eggs. But an evil demoness tricks Mother Goose into losing the goose and al her friends. Mother Goose realises beauty is not as important as family and friends. Its ends with a wedding.

My favourite part was when the two men poured glue down each others pants. Its was very funny.

Check some out of you live or are going to England.  I'd rate this one play 8/10.

I'd like to thank Sally who bought the tickets for this for me for Christmas. It was very kind and we loved it.

What we now know about the past. (Stone Age) Our visit to Avebury

Today at Avebury we learnt that the Stone Age people where way smarter then we thought originally. We looked at a period of time called the Neolithic age which was 6000 years ago.

In other words there more intelligent then we thought they where.                            

   They had necklaces and gems and traded and travelled.  

Battle of Bannockburn (my experience)

Today we went to the Battle of Bannockburn and got to go into the 3D experience.
It was amazing. We also got to see the battle on a board that had the map marked out and it had the mountains surfaces and  rises. Then after that we went head to head with the English team in a battle game that we got to play as the Scottish commanders.

The battle game was a computer generated game which was controlled by a game master who told us what our moves looked like. He was very good at describing things.  It was sort of like playing warhammer.

Our job was to beat the English so they can't get to the Castle of Stirling so we could win freedom of the Scots. It was super intense and we won in 1 day instead of wining in 2 days as that's what happens in real life history.

Then we got to go and stand where Robert the Bruce set up camp. We also stood in front of the statute of Robert the Bruce.

Wallace Monument

Today we went to the Wallace monument.  It celebrates William Wallace as  a national hero. He was not a hero when he was alive as most thought he was a rebel at best. In the 1800s Scottish people began to feel nationalistic so this monument was built.

We climbed the 264 steps and saw the sword and many others things that had to do with the battle of Falkirk and William Wallaces other battles.

It's was very high I thought it was amazing if look very well shaped by the architect. It was very fogy from the top of the monument but well worth it.

Battle of bannockburn (what happened)

The battle of Bannockburn was in 1314 in Sterling in Scotland. It went for two days.

The battle was between Edward ll and Robert the Bruce. Robert the Bruce had 10,000 soldiers and Edward ll had 20,000.

The scots where out numbered by the English. But the scots still won because of the training and the leaderships that they had.

This is an important historical event for Scotland because It was the first time they had won a battle with England and that it lead to the freedom of Scotland as an independent country.  That ended sadly in the 1700s.

Downe house - Charles Darwin

Today we went to Downe House in Kent. It was the home of Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin was a naturist, scientist and an explorer in the 1800s.

He came up with the Theory of Evolution.

He also found out about the theory of Survival of the fittest and Natural Selection

When he was 22 he sailed on the Beagle for 5 years around the world. He collected bugs, tribal people and animals from his visits.   He studied them and drew them on his books. Then he found out what family they came from and categorised all living things.

He published a book called the Origins of the Species. It took him 20 years to publish it because it had alot of things in it which went against Christianity and their beliefs about God and creation. But he still got yelled at and was hated by many people.

This is a painting of him just before he died. We saw the painting in his house.

Music lesson 1 What is music?

Music is a sound that comes out of an instrument or a group of instruments.

My favourite type music is pop.

My favourite group is Tryhardninja.

They make parodies of music my favourite is called Revenge.  A parody is when they get a song that is famous and they change the lyrics to being funny.

Map of the World - Geography

We are learning about maps and the maps of the world.

We learn about the continents of the world.

Did you know that Australia is not a continent?  It is an island.

I have written in the names of the continents and the oceans. I have also drawn in purple where we have travelled.

We have been to New Zealand, Fiji and Vanuatu a few times. We have been to Europe twice and are traveling around Europe now.

Gold rush in Australia !!!!! History Lesson

Gold was discovered in Australia in 1851 in Victoria.

When the world found out everyone rushed to Australia. Many came from California in the USA. There was a gold rush there earlier so when they heard about Australia, they came rushing in. Lots of Chinese people came to Australia as well.

Did you know the richest Goldfields where at Ballarat?

Luckily we got to pan for gold today. There were buckets of sand and you put sand into a tray with a holes int eh bottom and wash it through water that was rushing past.

The miners would have done the on the river banks. I think that this would be hard work and I am glad I didn't have to do it.

Here are some photos of us panning for gemstones

Spanish Lesson 4 - Shops

Bakery - Panadería

Supermarket - Supermercado

Bank - Banco

Autoteller - Coches Eller

Pharmacy - Farmacia

Butcher – Carnicero

Hairdresser – Peluquería

Shop – Tienda

Our favourite shop to look for was... the Panaderia. Walking into a village we could smell them and go and find them.

Carne means meat - so we could work out some shops and what they sold by knowing food names

Spanish Lesson 3 - Greetings

Hello – Hola

G’day – Buenas

Good Morning – buenos días

Good Evening –  buena noches

Good Night – Buenas noches

Goodbye – Adiós

The most common this we said on the Camino was 'Hola", "Bon Camino" and Adiós.  we basically didn't need much else!! ha ha

Spanish Lesson 2 - Days of the week

Monday – Lunes 

Tuesday – Martes 

Wednesday – Miércoles 

Thursday – Jueves 

Friday – Viernes

Saturday – Sábado 

Sunday – Domingo

Spanish Lesson 1 - Numbers

Over the next few weeks, I am reviewing all the languages we have come across on our travels.

We had to use alot of Spanish on the Camino so I am doing this first. 

Today I'm doing Spanish numbers I know most of them and I'm doing a blog about it

Numbers

1  = uno

2  = dos 

3  = tres 

4  = cuatro 

5  = cinco 

6  = seis 

7  = siete 

8  = ocho 

9   = nueve 

10  = diez

What it's like in a Victorian Aged school in 1878

Today we went into the old Victorian Aged school and did a 45 minute school lesson about waht it was like to be a student in the Victorian schools.

They had a cane to smack bad kids with and a back straightener for bad posture. You had to sit up straight and not talk or even look sideways or you would get a smack.

This is the class and teacher

Me in the class

The back straightener being used for a 'boy' that had bad posture. 

This is the dunce hat for the dumb people. We all pointed at the boy and said dummy at him.

I am glad schools have changed from this.

My Industrial Age job.

At the Museum of Childhood, they had a lot about being a child many years ago. Before the 1900s, children worked. During the Industrial Age from the 1760s, children worked in terrible placed like factories and mines. They were very dangerous and many kids got killed.

If I was a boy about  230 years ago I would choose to be a paper delivery boy. They had to deliver the news papers to the local houses before going to school. 

They also had to think about getting to school on time or else they'd be in trouble.

Paper boys didn't get paid much. Al the money kids earnt went to the parents to pay for food and house. Everyone worked back then. Everyone was poor.

Here is an ad I saw.

My favourite old fashion toy at Sudbury Halls Museum of Childhood.

My favourite old fashion toy was a wind up toy from the 1800s.

When you winded it up the wheel spun.

The way it works is when you wind it pulls a spring and when you release it it spins the gears witch made the wheel spin. I found this cool because you could make it go by its self.

This is the toy.

Children's exhibition at the National Art Gallery in London

Today we went to the national art gallery in London. The exhibition that we went to was focused on Georges Suerat's painting the bathers.this is a photo of the painting.

This is me  next to the painting so you can see how big it is. 

 The bathers was painted by taping the brush on the paper.

The exhibition had work from  age groups up to 13 year olds and as low as 6 year olds. There where lots of cool designs and they all looked like they jumped out of the painting and into another.

First we got to see some clay figurines from his painting. This is the best one in my opinion

Did you know that in England they have something called a bathing house. The batheing house is on two wheels and goes down to the water so you can get in arfter getting changed. Here is the best modal that I saw.

A nother way to do art is to not lift your pen and it's called a line drawing. I think that it would be hard to do this type of drawing.

On the whole, I thought all the kids who got their work displayed at the art gallery were very lucky and very good.  It was great to see how much art work can be done just by looking at a famous painting.

War horse review

Today we went to see War horse in the theater in London.

It was awesome that they could have real sized marrionette and puppett horses. It was amazing when the actors got on a sat on them and really ride them around.
Now I need to watch the movie and read the book. The book is a childrens book so its ok for me to read.  I can't give a call on how much it sticks to the movie or book but mum said it was pretty true.

One of the things that was good is that it had hardly any singing and more story.  There was lots of action and gun fights. I would rate it a 8.7/10. It's a go see play and I loved it.

Paycockes house and garden

Today we went to paycocke house. It was a Tudor house a very rich house. The owner got a lot of money from cloth. He made cloth and sold it. The house was very interesting and had a lot of cool things like coat of arms and belive it or not a bed post. The bed post had a fleurdelis on it witch is the symbol of royalty. There garden was pretty small. It had croquet in it so we gave it a shot and I loved playing it. It's so simple yet I thought it was as hard as chess to a beginner.

The coat of arms

  

Lilly in the tudor gear.

Us playing

Lilly again