Learning at Home: Pre history in Anglesey

Time and time again it's forced home to me just how much we learn when we are out and about with the children.Holidays are a prime example as we all have time to stop and ponder, even those in the family who go to work or mainstream school. If only the politicians could see what we've been learning perhaps they would change their minds about taking holidays during term time. It's what you do with your time that matters.Perhaps if they changed their requirements and requested a blog or scrap book of what each child learned during their holidays they might see things differently!

We have just spent a few days in Anglesey with my sister and her husband. It's our fourth visit now but each stay adds a layer to our knowledge about the Island and it's history.

I'm beginning to observe that my son with Aspergers, who is almost fourteen, reverts to 'normal' routine when he is surrounded by the family. He sleeps at night, joins in family meals and eats everything put before him and, once settled in, he will happily participate in family discussions.

His ear defenders have been off the whole time,despite fighter jets setting off from RAF Valley every morning and thundering over the house then back for tea.In fact he is fascinated by them and was delighted with a MASSIVE enclyclopedia about fighter planes which he bought for a pound at the weekly car boot sale at Valley.

We haven't yet visited The Electric Mountain so we set off up the welsh valleys to the visitor's centre. It was a drizzly day and the tours were booked up so we browsed the exhibits instead and learned about the huge power station deep inside the mountain.

The mountain was also home to the Welsh slate industry and there was a picture of the miners removing slate from the quarry face

The children also had a go at the science experiments in the Visitor's centre and discussed how they worked.

We discovered that just along the coast from where we were staying ,at Cable Bay there was a prehistoric burial mound which was built around the time of the Egyptian pyramids .

We all walked over to see it on a lovely summer evening and learned that Anglesey is home to many prehistoric remains.

At South Stacks at the west of the island beyond Holy head were the remains of hut circles and an iron age fort. The heather and gorse was in full bloom and the ground along the coast was a carpet of colour!

We visited the RSPB centre and studied a guillemot on its nest. Birds were scarce on the cliffs as most had hatched their chicks but we were able to see guillemots and herring gulls .In fact only a couple of weeks ago my sister had been lucky enough to see some porpoises!

It was lovely to see my Autistic son enjoying himself and using the binoculars,although he won't let me take his picture so I had to be somewhat sneaky to get this!