So the political intrigue of royal life in England continue after the death of William the Conqueror. Our notebooking pages and resources on William and The Battle of Hastings can be found in this post. Below is a quick overview of the highlights up to King John and the Magna Carta with some resources. I highly recommend An Island Story by HE Marshall and The Story of Britain by Patrick Dillon as an appealing way to introduce the various twists and turns of succession.
The Norman Kings:
William Rufus
Click on the image to listen to a Librivox recording of his story from Our Island Story by HE Marshall.
Upon the death of William the conqueror, William Rufus becomes ruler of England while his older brother Robert ruled Normandy after rebelling against his father. However, Rufus eventually re-asserted control over Normandy. He was deeply unpopular with the church as he would raid the monasteries to fund his wars. Death comes in the form of a stray arrow that kills Rufus in a hunting accident in the New Forest, undoubtedly there were suspicions of foul play and many thought his younger brother Henry had planned it all. While many expected Robert to take control of England, Henry outmaneuvered jis brother by acting swiftly and gaining control of the treasury. He eventually made a deal with Robert and with the support of the Clare family - he was crowned king on August 5th 1100.
William Rufus Resources:
You can download a powerpoint focusing on the question "Was William Rufus Murdered?" from tes.co.uk here.
Notebooking and colouring pages can be found at Activity Village.
Henry I
Click on the picture to hear the story of The White Ship from the Librivox recording of HE Marshall's Our Island Story
Henry I is crowned King and sets about expanding his political power and establishing laws for the more efficient administration of Englad. He made peace with the church and with his marriage to an Anglo-Saxon princess (a descendant of Edmund Ironside), he began to heal the divisions between the Normans and Anglo-Saxons and break down the differences. It was a period of peace and prosperity for England. He had two legitimate children in William and Matilda. William drowns in The White Ship, leaving Matilda (married to Geoffrey Plantagenet) as his only legitimate child.
Henry I Resources:
Video clip from the History File series on Henry I here.
Henry I extracts promises from the nobles that they will recognise Matilda as Queen of England upon his death but unsurprisingly, they balked at the idea of a woman ruling and turned to her cousin, Stephen of Blois and crowned him king. Thus starting a vicious 18 year civil war often called the Anarchy. Matilda ruled for a few months before the throne was seized from her but was never crowned and hence is rarely included in the list of Kings and Queens of England. Exhausted by years of war, they eventually made an agreement that Henry II would inherit the throne upon Stephen's death.
Empress Matilda and King Stephen Resources:
Watch this clip from History File series on Matilda and Stephen.
Henry II turned out to be a strong ruler with a temperament for war and a fiery temper. He expanded and conquered almost all the French lands, laid the foundation for the English jury system and raised taxes to pay for a personal militia force. He was ruthless with the nobles but said to be kind to his defeated enemies. Immensely intelligent and hardworking, he made sure he undermined the power base of his noble enemies by tearing down their castles and deported their 'foreign mercenaries'. He famously quarreled with Thomas Beckett (his closest companion whom he had appointed Archbishop of Canterbury as a way of controlling the church) and was blamed for Becket's murder. There was no peace in his old age as his son's turned against him and rebelled in an attempt to de-throne him. His sons included Richard the Lionheart and John Lackland.
Henry II resources:
Video clips from Kings and Queens on the life of Henry II and Thomas Becket here.
Worksheets on Henry II and Thomas Becket from School History.
The third son of Henry II, he was crowned upon his father's death. He spent no more than six months in England, preferring to be out leading his armies out in battle. He was the leader of the third crusade to Jerusalem. After many years of war, on his journey back to England, he was captured, imprisoned and held for ransom. A massive burden of taxation was placed on the people of England to pay for his ransom. Although often depicted as a hero of England, he actually had very little affection for England and the people, using the kingdom to finance his military exploits and in fact, he had spent very little time in England and did not speak the language. His brother John came close to seizing the throne from Richard but he was eventually forgiven and even named as his heir.
click on the picture to hear the story of the Magna Carta from the Librivox recording of Our Island Story by HE Marshall.
Vilified in film and in folktales - evidence seems to show that John Lackland was a better king than he is given credit - he was an able general and administrator but unfortunately was hindered by a cruel, spiteful and petty personality. He lost much of his French lands and subsequent battles against France and the Pope were expensive losses for him. The barons grew tired and rebellious and they marched on London forcing him to sign what became known as the Magna Carta. This document laid out the responsibilities of the King (limiting his power to obedience to the law) and protected the rights of the barons and the common people as well as the liberty of the church. John signed this under duress and immediately tried to rescind the document. However, the die was cast, and the signing of the Magna Carta paved the way for the eventual formation of parliament and the idea of representation by the people.
Our approach as we learned about these kings was to read about them in our books, watch the documentaries and I made use of some of the posted resources. I then assigned them time to make notebook pages on the Kings or make a PowerPoint presentation on them. I will post them at a later date when they are complete.
Ok, admittedly, we are not on the
road but after so many weeks of being unsettled and travelling up and down the
north and south of England, it is a luxury to be staying put for even four
weeks. Four weeks is a long time.....enough time for some routine, enough to
make plans for work, as such I am grabbing the opportunity with both
hands and we're making every effort to get back into our work routine.
So what are we doing? Not having any of my usual curriculum, books
and supplies has meant that I have had to improvise. This is the part in which
I could wax lyrical about the beauty of internet access!
Below is a look at how we are doing school:
Devotions:
We are carrying on with our daily devotions and I am using the
character studies fromConfessions
of a Homeschooleras the
basis of our short morning devotions. It has been very helpful for all of us.
These last two weeks, we have focused on Arguing (dealing with it rather than
actually arguing!) and Peacemaking. We haveallfound it very helpful and I have to
say that I have noticed a calmer atmosphere at home which is a blessing!
Last week we memorised:
1 Peter 3:8 " Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one
another, be sympathetic, live as brothers, be compassionate and humble."
(I made up some silly actions to go with it as it helps my four year old
remember it better and I have to say it works a treat!)
Some of my personal favourite verses were from Proverbs:
"A gentle answer turns away wrath, a harsh word stirs up
anger." Proverbs 15:1
"Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop a matter
before a dispute breaks out." Proverbs 17:14
So the week was spent declaring to each other whenever an argument
threatened to break out - " Don't breach the dam!" and "Be a
Peacemaker!" And it worked (mostly) LOL.
Math:
I was using a combination of MEP math and Singapore Math before we
moved but I don't have my workbooks with me and while MEP is available online -
I didn't fancy printing out the materials again and to be honest, it was
too time-intensive during our period of family crisis.
I discoveredConquerMathafter joining some UK homeschooling
forums. It is a programme that follows the British system right up to the GCSEs
and you can buy the CD or subscribe for online access - no books to cart about. It works brilliantly for
us as each subject starts with a video of a short 5-10 minute tutorial which is
clear and concise afterwhich the kids go on to do a series of exercises online
- all independently. Records are kept of their progress and they can go back
anytime and do more exercises. This is such a help as it frees me up and they
have someone else other than slow-at-math-mum teaching them.
English:
As my girls are at different grades - I am focusing on different
things for them.
My elder daughter signed up to do two literary analysis courses
withBrave Writer(The Hobbit and Anne Of Green Gables)
over the last 4 months. I've said it before and I'll say it again - we love
Brave Writer classes. She learnt a lot and enjoyed the classes immensely. She
has really come along in terms of thinking about and analysing a text. She is
now doing some work towards preparing for the IGCSEs with a UK based tutor
calledCatherine Mooney. She
offers exam support, tutoring and marking of assignments. While I have no
immediate plans for my 12 year old to take the IGCSEs just yet - she is
certainly ready for the work. So we are using Catherine's course as a way to
work through the concepts she will need to know for her understanding. It is
written in an engaging and interesting way, so my daughter has been enjoying it so
far. I am also thinking about usingSusan Wise
Bauer's Writing With Skillto
work on her writing skills - I've downloaded some sample chapters for her to
work through and we will see if it works out well. We are also continuing with
copywork usingBrave
Writer's Arrows and Boomerang programmesas well as quotes I am
pulling off the internet and books we are reading.
My younger daughter is working on building up fluency with her
reading, writing and spelling. A friend recommendedUnits
of Sound( a programme
designed to help dyslexic kids build a firm foundation in spelling, reading,
memory and dictation). While my younger daughter is not diagnosed as dyslexic -
she does have some issues. So in the period where I haven't had time to sit
with her for spelling and copywork - I decided to give the programme a try. She says it is helpful especially the dictation and memory
sections. We are also throwing in handwriting practice and more recently, we
have started copywork again using our Arrows monthly publication.(I bought a
number of different back issues at 50% off during an offer with theHomeschool
Buyers Co-op- very happy
about that!). She has recently started Catherine Mooney's Word Weaverscourse
which should help her with establishing her grammar and writing skills. It comes with an audio CD which is an extra help. I also
purchased in downloadable PDF format Susan
Wise Bauer's Writing With Ease Level 3as
I think she could do with building up her narration and comprehension skills
and with that book I don't have to think - I just print it out and go.
Outsourcing help and using online programmes or computer software has been the key to keeping homeschooling on the road during our time of uncertainty.
History:
As we are in the UK and all ourTapestry of Gracebooks and curriculum are in storage -
I had to pull together a plan for our history studies. Being in England -
studying British History seemed to make the most sense.
As the spine of our lessons, I am
usingThe Story of Britain by Patrick Dillon which
I stumbled across in the bookshops. It is an engaging and well-written overview
of the stories of british history written in chronological order for children -
a little like a modern version ofAn Island Story by H.M. Marshall(also in storage!) I started reading this
aloud and I also purchased fromAudiblethe audio book of An Island Story. Both books
give a helpful introduction into Britain's history. We have been reading it through
but these few weeks we have gone back to the beginning to solidfy their
understanding with more in-depth work.
I did a quick review of early British history including the Celts, Roman invasion, invasions of the Vikings (Danes), the Angles and the Saxons - ending with the death of Edward the Confessor. The girls made a notebooking page on an introduction to Ancient
Britain. Click here for theEarly
British History notebooking page.
Then we took up our story with the Battle of Hastings and conquest by Duke William of Normandy in 1066 - a crucial turning point for British History.
I found some excellent resources
and made some notebook pages:
The Battle of Hastings - I used this excellent websiteto tell the story of the battle using the Bayeux tapestry and this helpful powerpointon The Battle of Hastings to go through the events of the battle. The BBC have produced wonderful hands-on resourceson the Normans - using their lesson ideas, I
told the girls to pretend to be news journalists in the midst of the battle -
one was reporting for the Normans and the other for the Anglo-Saxons. They had
notes and then made short reports on the battle as it progressed. It was great
fun role-playing newscasters and it really helped solidify their knowledge of the actual events of the battle.
Finally, they finished off the lesson by making a newspaper front page on the battle. They used
this template. It was definitely one of their favourite things to do.
We shall be continuing a more in-depth look at British history as
we go on and I will post more on the resources we use.
I have to mention our favourite show - CBBC's Horrible Histories
which is available on Youtube. We all love it. It is very silly and funny
(british humour) but it is amazing the little facts that stick through
all the silliness. The girls have learnt the sequence of the Kings and Queens
of England from this skit. Even my 4 year old is singing it! We love love love the Horrible Histories TV show. Go on Youtube and watch it - I guarantee you'll find
it impossible to tear your kids or yourself away from watching.
The Kings and Queens of England Video
Another video on the War of The Roses (just for fun!)
And one more, just because I love it! About the Domesday book.
Enjoy!
Science:
Science was hard for me to do consistently without my books.We read a variety science books picked up from the bookstore and started using a borrowed Apologia
General Science book - however, I needed something they could work on independently and provided some hands-on work and experiments for them to do. I heard about Exploration Education's Physical
Science programme from a friend's blog and liked the sound of it. It allows them to learn independently through
interactive text on the computer and it comes with box of experiments and
hands-on learning. The programme takes them step by step through a variety of projects such as building a car, a circuit board and a motor and using those things to carry out experiments. The experiments come in organised, well-labelled bags and it practically has everything you need. They managed 3 lessons to date and then got stalled because we didn't have a glue gun! That has now been ordered and we are looking forward to getting on with it! The girls like it and enjoy putting together the projects. We are also reading through The Story Book Of Science by Jean Henri Fabre which is a lovely read-aloud book that centres on the conversations between three children and their very knowledgeable uncle who takes them on journeys of discovery through story about nature and the world in general from ants milking "cows", spiders building suspension bridges, how we make cloth from wool, flax, hemp and cotton, volcanoes and earthquakes.
Art Appreciation:
We are using The Story of the World's Greatest Paintings by Charlie Ayres which I picked up from the bookstore. It is an easy no-fuss way to accomplish art studies at the moment. It works well as a jumping off point for learning more about the artist and his work. I also use the SmartHistory videos for a more in-depth analysis of an artwork or artist.
Poetry and memorisation:
I am trying to get back to encouraging the kids to memorise bible verses and poems. So we have a bible verse to learn each week and I am printing out poems for them to read and memorise once a week. I am also trying to incorporate poetry reading during our tea-times. Winter is a lovely time for hot chocolate, muffins and poetry!
Music Appreciation:
Another no-fuss solution to incorporating music appreciation in our week for now - I found this book My First Classical Music Book which comes with a CD and an introduction to instruments and an orchestra. Although it is aimed more at my four-year old - we spend 15 minutes going through a chapter a day and listening (and dancing!) to the music. It is a nice way to keep up with some music appreciation without too much effort.
Nature Studies:
You may have read in an earlier post that we do not enjoy the climate of the tropics at all and while we were living in Singapore - nature studies always had to be deliberately planned. It is so much more fun in temperate climates - you just want to be outdoors (admittedly less so in the winter). Nature studies have just happened naturally as the girls have taken an interest in the world outside. They have really got
into birdwatching after we put a feeder in their grandparent's garden - they are taking pictures, using the field guides to identify the birds and checking out their tracks in the snow. Their experience was further enhanced when I bought this DVD - Beginning Watercolor Journalling. I bought it after reading about it in this inspiring post at Pondered in my heart. It has paid off and the girls have been
completely inspired by what they've watched and started to journal and paint more regularly. These are some early efforts.
French:
I found a lovely lady who comes twice a week to teach all three kids. She does a great job engaging them using stories and fun games. I have asked her to start the girls on more serious grammar as they have progressed quite nicely. She recommended languages online as a good website for practice.
My Rosetta Stone software is in storage so I'm not getting much use out of that at the moment although I suspect that they are going to be able to progress much quicker with it after these lessons. I've heard about Galore Park French and have been looking into using this - possibly since we
may not be in our current accomodation for long and will move to another part
of the UK and lose our lovely french teacher!
PE:
Being active is a total challenge in winter and not being in a
place for more than a month or two makes it hard to join any organised
activities. So I am literally trying to make sure we get off our bottoms for 20
minutes each day at leastto exercise . It's too cold to go outside for too long so I've devised
indoor games (like an active Simon Says) or exercises like circuit training. We might start off with some
stretches and then on some days, I'll have them pick 5 exercises from a pile of cards - it might say something like 10 sit ups, run up and down the stairs 2 times, 20 jumping jacks etc. On On other
days I will lead the exercises myself. I'd love to play more silly run around
games (we used to play dodge ball with a soft squishy ball and have obstacle
course races in our old home) but there just isn't enough kid-friendly space
for that kind of play indoors.
So that's us at the moment, for the next few weeks at least - who knows what the next month will bring for us but I'll take what we can get.
Returning to the Americas after the study of the Olmecs and Mayans during our Ancient Civilisations tour was interesting (if not a little more gruesome - with all the human sacrifices!). I am posting a bunch of resources that I found and created for our studies.
I made a few notebook pages to use with our studies. The first is aQuick History of The Aztecs in Pictures. I created some text boxes and prepared some clip art to add to each box. As we discussed the Aztecs - I had my kids add the pictures to the boxes to create a nice notebook page for their books.
At the start of each study of a new civilisation, we will usually do some map-work to get an idea of where in the world we are and then we'll learn a little more about the geography, culture. climate, fauna and flora of the new place. This time, after a power point presentation that I created to use with the girls as an introduction - I gave them a list of animals and plants that were indigenous to Central and South American and asked them to do some research on them and add them to index cards which slipped into this lapbook piece. They then pasted it onto a piece of cardstock and added it to their books. The list of plants and animals included:
Cocoa beans
Brazilian nut tree
Pineapples
Potato
Orchids
Armadillo
Chinchilla
Marmoset
Tapir
Jaguar
Llama
You can download the cliparthere and you can download the lapbook piecehere.
The power-point presentation can be accessed and downloaded here. (Most of the information on it comes from Wikipedia).
We also watched some excellent videos below about the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica and Michael Palin's trek to the Atacama Desert.
Due to time constraints, we did not do any hands-on activities which I usually like incorporate. You could go into so much more detail with studying the daily life and religion of the Aztecs, their art and craft, farming methods and food, their amazing engineering feats and of course, you have to study all about the fall of the Aztec empire at the hands of the Spaniards. Below is another excellent documentary by the BBC presented by Michael Woods about the fall of the Aztec empire.
Here are some other helpful resources:
http://aztecs.mrdonn.org/ - his site is a goldmine of kid-friendly information, links to powerpoints, games, activities and lesson plans on just about any subject!
My kids love getting messy with craft, clay, paint and generally being creative. So this term I have been determined to make sure that we complement our Tapestry of Grace studies with more hands on activities.
Our study of the Byzantine Empire inspired our art studies and there are so many different art activities one can do. Once we had spent enough time looking at the different aspects of Byzantine art from its architecture to mosaics and brilliant illuminations, I had to decide what we would take on.
Mosaics
Print a blackline picture drawn in Byzantine style on card stock, enlarge it and stick your tiles to it.
Click here for a good source of Byzantine style colouring pages. This idea could easily be adapted to use paper tiles, coloured egg shells or glass tiles.
Ms Julie's Art School has a great post on making a fresco using a blackline drawing. In this post, she is using a drawing from a fresco by Giotto Di Bondone but it is easy enough to substitute with one of the Byzantine colouring pages provided in the link above.
Illuminations
This is the project that we picked in the end and I was very pleased with it. This site is fabulous for teaching your kids about manuscripts and illuminations. They have a slide show which shows a number of different illuminations and asks questions which allow the kids to explore each manuscript more closely and then it gives you more information about the manuscript you are observing. There is another resource that shows you how manuscripts were made, the different roles and the whole process. They also provide templates for you to make your own manuscript illuminations.
Creating a whole manuscript page would have taken more time than we had, so I decided that they should create their own illuminated letter which was a smaller more manageable project.
I found this fantastic PDF lesson on the Art Of Creating Illuminated Letters which I used as the basis of my instruction. Then I used a free download from Prose and Letters which distilled in one page the essence of how to draw a medieval border. We then surfed online to look at different types of letter fonts and calligraphy to help them decide how they wanted to draw their letter. We used felt tip pens, coloured pencils and various metallic pens to get the right effect.
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