War Memorial Visit - July 2009

We were reminded of this scene recently as it was Remembrance Day on the 11th of November.  However, I took this photo when we went to the War Memorial in July with one of the local homeschooling groups.

Seeing the honour roll, going into the tomb of the unknown soldier and hearing some of the stories of what the soldiers did in battle is a poignant reminder that our freedom has been bought at a great price, and also that war isn’t all that glamourous.

Steve went with the older group and they mainly concentrated on the WWII galleries.  The younger group was looking at Gallipoli, the ANZACs and WWI and as I stayed with them, I’ll be writing more about that side of the trip. Even though I have a book on Gallipoli and we often talk about this campaign at the time of ANZAC Day, it was great to be at the Memorial and get a broader and deeper perspective of what this meant to the soldiers at the time.

The boys were amazed by this boat, taken directly from the beaches at ANZAC Cove and riddled with bullet holes from the Turks.

The model displaying the rugged and steep coastline and narrows of the Dardanelles showed the incredible disadvantage at which our troops fought.

The ration packs and woolen uniforms brought home other challenges faced by the men in the trenches. Other displays demonstrated the difficulties in other theatres of war.  Having recently studied Belgium for the Geography Night held in late June, seeing images of the soldiers in Flanders was a natural integration in their learning.

I could talk about a lot more of the displays but there’s just so much at the War Memorial and we did look at so many things!  From scaling the heights in the Gallipoli campaign, to being stuck in the mud and filth of the trenches on the western front, to charging into the desert with the Light Horse, we then ended up looking at the skies overhead and the flying aces.

Peter Jackson, of Lord of the Rings fame, has put together an amazing, 8 minute long "dog fight".  It’s impressive, not just for the scope of the sequence but also because it spans a huge, curved screen, giving an incredible 3D effect.  It opened in November last year and is played at regular intervals throughout the day.  We were all transfixed watching this!  It’s a wonderful addition to the War Memorial and we’ll go back and watch it again, I’m sure.

We have such a rich, interesting and memorable resource right at our fingertips here in Canberra.  Maybe there’s something similar where you live.  It’s great when History can come alive and be made meaningful.

Posted on on July 4th, 2009

Shelfari and reading books

Reading good, living books has always been a part of our history studies and really, just part of what we do. 

At the moment, we have been reading through some fantastic books for history.  Our core book has been "The Puritan Revolution" by C Walter Hodges.  Hodges is known for his great illustrations but this series on the "Story of Britain" combines his skill as an illustrator with his abilities as a writer.  He has great passages of writing, explaining some of the complexity of the tensions between Parliament, the King and religious factions with relative ease.  He highlights the problems of too much power being concentrated in the one place or person, and in the space of 64 pages, is able to build a good picture of the struggles involved.

Added to this we’ve looked at some books on John Bunyan.  Zac has enjoyed the level at which "Traitor in the Tower" is set and has been keen to read more of this Trailblazer series in his own time.  We have a few of the books in this series already but I am now tracking down more…

I recently bought a book on Robert Boyle just out of interest as I have enjoyed all of John Hudson Tiner’s books.  Little did I realise, not being a sciency type, that he was a contemporary of John Bunyan and much of the history in England at this time is reflected in the biography!  The timing could not have been better and I am going to pass that book on to the boys to read next week.

Then, Zac decided to take a break from Pathway readers for his read aloud to me and asked if he could use "Ten Boys Who Made History".  Of course, that was fine with me and the first story this week was of Samuel Rutherford. a Scot who also lived during this time period and was part of the assembly in Westminster that put together those great confessions of faith.  It is truly amazing how God  causes these events to conspire!  We are certainly gaining a rounded view as we linger a little longer in the mid 1600s in England.

So, go and check out my bookshelf – left hand margin to see all the main books we are reading at the moment.  Adam is getting into Encyclopedia Brown after some gentle encouragement from Miss Libby but maybe that is an entry for another time.

What books are you reading right now?

Posted on on August 14th, 2008 

Sistine Chapel Drawings

It’s hard to know what category to put this under! It could go under Art as we did some drawings (though they were a little wobbly). It could go under read-alouds as we are reading a book on Michelangelo called Wings of an Eagle but I’ll put it under History. I love being able to integrate our learning across many areas and History serves as the framework for that.

We followed a suggestion given by a friend to tape some paper under a table and draw like Michelangelo had to for the Sistine Chapel. We were only doing it for 15 minutes or so and the boys were complaining of sore arms. It did provoke the response I thought it would, "How did Michelangelo do this for 4 years?!"

Poor Adam strains to reach the paper!

Adam on his knees, still having to reach up to the paper!

Giving a quick demo…

I drew a section of a tree trunk for about 5 minutes and then my arm got a little sore.Zac drew a ringtail possum. He did really well with this. I think he was pleased with it, don’t you?

Stevie drew a man and he was rather large! I thought he did a great face and love the expression in it. Unfortunately, Adam got a bit silly with his and scribbled over it.

On the whole, they learned a lot doing this exercise and, apart from a slightly sore arm, enjoyed the challenge.

Posted on on May 29th, 2007

Medieval Madness! Sep 2006

We had a Medieval Day today with our homeschooling group and it was fantastic. Though I came up with the idea, each family contributed an item and made the day a success.

Here was the invitation:

We are holding a special day on Saturday 23 September to celebrate Medieval times.
From 10am to 2pm
We encourage you to come as a family.

What’s the rough format?
We want to start at 10am and give children the opportunity to try lots of activities/crafts – some will be compulsory but most will be chosen by your child before the day.

After a general intro, we will have the etiquette class. Then we will divide the children into groups and they will go to one activity "station" and then make their way through all the others they have chosen for the morning.

Activities include:
Weaving
Knight’s Pouch
Letter illumination
Piqued hat making
Stained glass
Archery
Trebuchet
Stab the Dummy and 
Knight’s Challenge (eat some gruel, storm the castle, rescue the lady)

Here’s some photos of the events:

     

Piqued hat making (Abi poses)     Stained glass window craft

  
  Letter illumination

      
Archery                                       Knight’s Challenge- storm the castle

        

Zac with his knight’s pouch   Time to eat the gruel!!!

At around 12noon, we want to get things set up for a medieval feast.

At around 1pm, we are thinking of having a jousting tournament. All families will gather to take part and spectate and cheer.

Here’s a couple of photos from that:

     
Junior jousting   
                                                
Without the helmets

In one of the helmets…

Here’s some general shots too:

The parents and children who dressed up.

Mark and me

One of the dads is really amazing and makes his own armour, weapons, shields and came up with those brilliant jousting lances which retracted on impact and were nice and safe. The shields at the start were his and here’s some more of his handiwork:

    

Posted on on September 22nd, 2006

Night at the Museum – 14 September

On Friday, we went to a "Night at the Museum" outing. It was not night and it wasn’t a museum but it was a lot of fun!! (oh, and  ahem! educational too).

We had to choose a character and come dressed as that person from the movie. We also had to have 3 facts about our character to share with the group for a quiz. So, we watched it and the boys decided to be the following:

Zac was Jedidiah (a cowboy).

He told me that cowboys like to settle disputes with guns, live and work on ranches, and go to rodeos.

Stevie was Octavius and so was Micah.

He told me that Octavius was Julius Caesar’s nephew, beat Antony and Cleopatra, was called Caesar Augustus in the Bible and brought in the Pax Romana. All of those facts were not in the movie but are true to this historical character. He had remembered them from when we had studied Roman times and also from his reading.

Adam was Dexter, the monkey.

We didn’t know much about him, so we looked up some pages online. Dexter is a Capuchin monkey, he’s found in South America, has a black tail and black and brown/grey fur. In the movie, he’s loving and giving when treated well and very cheeky!!

Mark was a Roman foot soldier but didn’t want me to take an individual one of him…

So, we turned up, had lunch and then got into some games. The children had to put the characters in chronological order, run to the continent listed on the wall to say where someone came from and play bingo.

Yes, she’s playing bingo with M&Ms for markers!!

After that, we all got a well-earned rest and watched the movie together. Apart from the technically-induced intermission, it went smoothly.

I’ll just put a few more piccies below:

All the characters, even Texas, Teddy Roosevelt’s horse.

Easter Island Statue

Skeletal Rexxy

Attilla the Hun, a Ninja and Ahkmen-Ra

History certainly came alive and we had a great time! Thanks for organising it, Donna and thanks to all who made it a wonderful day.

Posted on on September 18th, 2007

Knightly Concertina Books- Sep 2006

We are now in the world of knights.

Studying the Middle Ages feels like a whirlwind this year. I have cut a
lot out to just focus on some key things but we are moving at a far
clip!

We did these little books to talk about some of the
things a person does from being a page to becoming a knight. It's only
a small selection and we had fun making it up into these little books.

I got some great paper from the craft shop. One is medieval music, one
is the fleur-de-lis of France and on the flip side is the lion of
England.

At the end, is a knight's code of honour which took up a little bit more room…

In the background, you can see a map. I have a map of Historical France
on the table right now. It's between some thick plastic and the table.

A close up of one of them.

Posted on on September 4th, 2006 

The Roman Shields – May 2006

After spending a good couple of months finishing our studies of Roman History, we decided to make some shields.

Drilling and cutting the shields to size – 4 May

The Asterix-Roman Shield – 17 May
This was the style the boys really wanted to make!

The symbol on Constantine's shield – 17 May
After writing about Constantine for the Knowledge Quest book, I really had to do this style and Adam did one too.

The boys get in some practice!

Posted on on July 7th, 2006

How to make the shields

I was
asked for some instructions on one of the homeschooling boards, so I've
written it down. I have backdated it so that you see the shields first
and then the instructions underneath. Hopefully, it's very clear…

The
shields were very easy. I got some project board at a hardware store
(900x600x3mm) and then ruled it in half and sawed it into two equal
pieces. I measured each boy's arm against the shield and pencilled in
four holes for the cord to go through. I then drilled the holes – as
seen in the photo  We then got a little foam roller and a paint tray and painted all of the shield in red.

A
few days later, we pencilled in the design for the front and then
painted it in gold folk art paint with normal art brushes. Once that
was dry, I got some strong cord/twine and put it through the holes.
They are knotted at the front of the shield and each length was
measured against the boy's arm so it would be the right size. They have
one loop (top and bottom holes) for their arm and one loop (top and
bottom holes) for their hand to hang onto the shield. If you look back
at one of the photos of the shields, you'll see the knots in the front.

My
apologies to any Americans – you'll have to convert the measurement for
the board into inches. Perhaps you already have a ready-made size?