The Fascinating World of .... Toilets!!!!

What an eventful week! Halfway through our Middle Ages, we took a detour when we discovered how toilets were invented. Now, before you think I'm completely mad, what happened was this... We were reading about castles and moats and how back then, before proper flushing toilets came about, people would actually empty their wastes out into the moat surrounding the castle. This, of course, was a most innovative way of firstly getting rid of their unmentionable wastes, and secondly, it made the moat nice and smelly so that enemies would think twice before wading through a filthy moat to invade the castle.

Naturally my sons found this snippet of information highly entertaining and wanted to delve further into the invention of toilets. Thus began our first detour of many :) From the invention of toilets, we moved on to how flushes work and how toilets can be improved. Then we moved on to the digestive systems of people, since waste that is usually flushed down comes from the bowels of one's digestive insides. Finally, when we had exhausted all that, we came back to the knights and castles. And with gusto, my sons delved into the parts of the knights' armor (of course wondering just how did they go to the toilet covered in armour???). We also made shields and swords and various long range missiles like catapults and siege towers using lego and other stuff, and worked on making a drawbridge with a portcullis. I didn't realise that so much science and math could be weaved into this unit, but we have done simple machines, three dimensional figures, volume of solids, area and perimeter. Plus lots of skip counting in between.
Finger puppets for storytelling. Sword and Coat of Arms from cardboard, acrylics and silver foil.

Okay....gotta go coz the brood beckons for dinner! Photos will be posted tonight! Promise!