The Accidental Home Educator: The Museum of London

The term 'home education' can give the impression that home-educated children spend all their time stuck at home with their parents. In fact, home education gives children the opportunity to learn outside in the world, rather than being in a classroom all day. Of course, schools offer school trips, but they are usually once or twice a term, whereas home education offers the chance to go out as much as you want.

For the last two days this week, Charlie's learning took place outside home. On Thursday, we caught a train up to London to visit both the Museum of London and the poppy exhibition at the Tower of London.

The museum explores the history of London and its people. One of the many things I love about it is that it displays its collections chronologically, which helped Charlie to understand how historical events unfolded over time.

After lunch in the cafe, we began our tour in the 'London before London' room, which looks at 'the story of the Thames Valley and the people who lived there from 450,000 BC to the coming of the Romans in AD 50.' (Museum of London website)

The most important element of the prehistoric material is the collection of some 900 pieces of Bronze Age and Iron Age metalwork, mostly recovered from the Thames. It is one of the largest such collections in the country and has been - See more at: http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/collections-research/about-collections/prehistoric/#sthash.24W7C6Zh.dpuf

The museum's prehistoric collection includes a large number of artefacts from the Bronze and Iron Age, mostly recovered from the River Thames. Charlie enjoyed the opportunity to touch some of the flint tools, noticing how incredibly sharp they were. An accompanying video showed how the tools were used: for instance, for cutting meat. We were all impressed by how easily the flint cut through flesh.

A highlight of the collection is the reconstructed face of a Neolithic woman, known as 'the Shepperton woman'. She was found in Shepperton, dug into a grave in the remains of an ancient sacred site. She is approximately 5500 years old. There's an interesting article on her by the curator here.

We spent some time browsing through the rest of the museum's prehistoric collection, looking at the skull of an extinct auroch (ox), which once lived in the wilderness of prehistoric London, pieces of Bronze and Iron Age metalwork and many flint and stone implements.

The collection ended with a recreation of part of a Celtic roundhouse, showing how the wall was constructed to make it weatherproof. The museum website features a short game called the 'Roundhouse Challenge' explaining how such houses were built, which we will be looking at next week.

We then moved into London's Roman period.

All change - welcome for some, not so much for others

Charlie was particularly interested in the two Roman architectural models. They were cleverly laid out at child's eye level, which meant he spotted things that we didn't notice. For instance, he noticed that two of the figures inside a model house were playing 'chess' (probably Roman chess or latrunculi).

A model of Romans building a bridge over the River Thames

Two people playing a board game

A model of the civic centre in Londinium

After this, we entered a recreation of a Roman street.

This was followed by displays of the interiors of Roman houses.

A reconstructed Roman dining room, dating from approximately 100AD

The interior of a wealthy Roman house

A Roman kitchen

Display of Roman food

There was so much more to see in the museum after we'd left the Roman collection. First, we looked at a timeline on the wall and Charlie was able to see where on that line the Romans were and then find the Titanic era, which we were studying before half term.

Here are a few of our personal highlights:

A model of the Globe Theatre

A Penny Farthing

A Unic taxi licensed for use in 1908

Selfridges lift, 1928

A model road and railway set


Children's TV from the 1960s

We also really enjoyed the film about the Great Fire of London.

It took us about half an hour to walk from the Barbican to the Tower of London to see the poppy exhibition. The pavement was packed with spectators and I was worried that Charlie wouldn't be able to see, but a man generously moved out of the way to make room for him at the fence.

I explained to Charlie that the exhibition marked the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, with each poppy representing a British soldier's death. Both myself and my husband had great uncles who were killed in the war, something which Charlie and I will be learning more about later, as part of his education about World War I.

The exhibition was beautiful and moving, but it was also heart-warming to see all the people there who had made the journey to see it.

The following day, we had another day of learning outside the home, when we travelled to our local home-ed meet-up. This week's theme was 'The Human Body' and several parents had brought in books, games and worksheets. One mother had brought in several large rolls of paper, so that children could draw round the outlines of each other with pens, then add in the organs or bones. There was also the opportunity to play table football or snooker or to visit the outdoor playground. It was a really relaxed and enjoyable meeting and I liked having the chance to meet fellow home educators.