History lesson: Dover Castle

Cooking or doing laundry?

Still snowing, but on Sunday we decided to brave it and go for a history exploration day at Dover Castle.  We were really lucky because as well as the usual fantastic displays, we arrived in the Keep just in time for a fantastic interactive reenactment of the moment Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine won the rights to her lands in Aquitaine from her son Richard, in in so doing also her freedom from her husband King Henry.  The actors and the costumes were fantastic, and Ollie was very excited to receive a gold (chocolate) coin from the Queen and a writ entitling him to the freedom of the Royal Forests. Ollie's favourite part was the guided tour of the underground dressing station.  To reinforce what he had seen, we read his castles book to him that night at bedtime (well, did our best to translate the only kids book on castles we have from French into English for him).  Then today we printed out the photos I took, cut them out and Ollie stuck them down on a sheet of card.  I added the labels and he drew a picture of the hospital in the tunnel.  He asked for the Castles book again as one of tonight's bedtime books, which once again helps to reinforce his memory of what he saw on Sunday, including his new vocabulary 'gate house', 'keep', 'drawbridge' and 'crenelations'.