The book is a humorous introduction into the mad world of Inventors. That specific breed of scientist who has no qualms about putting their lives or the lives of their friends, relatives and chickens on the line for the sake of progress.

The information is sound and broken up into snippets easily digested by the young mind. Each page is peppered with cheeky illustrations that bring the text to life.

There is also a link in the book to the Usborne Quicklinks Website were you can have ago at being an inventor yourself in the safety of the unexplodable internet.

Anyhoo, I had set Sabrina up on the rug with her wooden blocks while we read our two pages above her on the lounge. We were reading about the invention of the wheel. We hit a bit of a brick wall when the idea of rolling logs to transport stone was mentioned, Lilly just didn’t get it, I don’t know why, the poor child must be deprived in the rolling things arena. So I commandeered a bunch of Sabi’s blocks for an object lesson.

Then of course they had to make it cooler.

Because they were having such a ball with the blocks I let them stay on the floor while I read our lesson from The Story of the World. I think this was probably the book I was trying to buy when I bought the other one as well.

I like this book, the kids are hooked on it which in my mind is the best rating a school book can get. If it doesn’t hold their interest they aren’t going to learn anything other than how to look like you are listening while you are actually daydreaming about fairies. 

The Story of the World is history for the classical child apparently, I didn’t know mine were classical, I have always thought of them more sort of bohemian or even abstract at times but there you go.

The book combines factual accounts, ancient myths, legends and fictional stories based on life in the time you are looking at. It also explains, through the use of story telling, the definition of Archaeologists and Historians. My children now think of themselves as Archaeologists because they used the discovery of buried artefacts and other forms of physical evidence to prove beyond a doubt that the people who owned this house before us had a dog. Their scientific proofs are: A dog bone with teeth marks found under the house, A half chewed tennis ball found buried in the garden and the handle on the washing line was chewed to bits. Total geniuses.     

The chapter that we read was about the first nomads becoming farmers. As I looked up from my reading about a girl and her family who had recently come to live on the banks of the Euphrates river and were being taught how to place seeds in the rich soil of the river bank to find….

..our own fertile crescent appearing on my lounge room floor. The more I read the more they added to their model, like the horse because the girl in the story ate horse meat so we know there were horses. It was very cute, I couldn’t stop smiling as I read watching their big round eyes hanging off every word to see what else they could add. But then the inevitable happened and as I read through the last paragraph I was constantly interrupted with plaintive cries of "AHHHH, Sabrina has her foot in my Tigris River!!"  "Sabrina just threw a farm house at the Fertile Crescent!" and "Ahhh now she’s put the trees in the Tigris and run off with the Euphrates!!!"

"But They Are My Blocks!".

Glenn and I were allowed out of the house last night to help celebrate one of our friends birthdays, thank you so much for having a birthday and deciding to do something with it instead of ignoring them like the rest of us.

Because it was an actual sit down with other adults and discuss things that don’t have to do with Dora’s quest to The Gooey Geyser dinner, and to avoid breaking the child abandonment laws we hired The Science Sitter. A life long friend of mine, first acquainted when we were both still trapped inside another person, to come over and mind the kids. She is and has always been totally addicted to science and the kids just adore having her around. When ever she turns up they run up to her to check that she has brought The Science book. A book full of Kid friendly science experiments. So Glenn and I were able to leave last night knowing that our children would be happily conquering the world of Einstein and not missing us one bit.

A wrap up of last nights science experiment:

Alanah: I learnt about the xylem, it carries water to the plant. You put the celery in food colouring and the xylem sucks it up the plant.

Elijah: when there’s water on the grass it goes under the grass then it goes up that (xylem) to the plant.

Lillian: I don’t know what happened but it looks like blue and red.

It has to be one of the easiest experiments to set up with the most spectacular results for kids. Just put a lot of food colouring and a little bit of water in a glass. cut a stalk of celery off the bunch and stick it in the food colouring. After a few minnets the colouring is visible in the stringy bit of the stalk and after a few hours all the leaves of the plant change colour. Give it a go kids love this stuff.