overheard in the Castiron household

[castiron]

In the "fun with middle son's bizarre syntax" department:

Middle son: I want to see four white boys with instruments on Youtube.

Castiron: ????

Middle son: The four boys with white dresses!

Castiron:  Oh, you want to see the Greek Thinkers song.

(Are the Horrible Histories books worth acquiring?  Our library doesn't have any of them in English [though they have three volumes in Spanish], so I can't check them out that way.)

****

In the "fun with random baby activity and good timing" department:

[Youngest son, in bout of random arm flailing, hits forehead with back of hand.]

Castiron: Oh, I see, you were in the British Army in a former life.

Younger son:  [brief smile]

Comments

[antisoppist]

I still haven't got used to the children correcting us on the philosophy of Diogenes.

The Horrible Histories books are not as good as the TV series though they did come first. There are an awful lot of them if they get hooked on them. We only have a few, for the periods that have grabbed them particularly, especially Romans and Egyptians. With short chunks of text and lots of cartoons and speech bubbles, they were useful in getting Son reading when he wasn't very confident about vast chunks of text but the language wasn;t that easy for him at that stage. Personally I also found them awful to read aloud because it's so bitty, but that makes them good for children to dip in and out of themselves.

Son, who is 8 and likes history, says: "They are funny and entertaining basically. They're not too difficult and they are not too easy. Say that they are not a waste of money basically."

Daughter, who is 11, says the TV series is much better than the books (she is an avid reader and is more into fiction).

I don't know if this helps at all :-)

[green_knight]

I quite like the Horrible Histories- they're funny, very much schoolboy humour, historically sound and full of quirky facts that might make kids want to learn more.