So...to continue our Medieval Ages journey, we talked about Muhammad creating Islam. We made miniature prayer rugs as our activity.
Then we talked about pilgrimages and how Catholics create cathedrals to hold holy relics, and I emphasized the importance of Jerusalem for Christians, Jews, and Muslims. For our activity we made stained glass windows.
Don't you love that unicorn!? The cutie downstairs did it.
Then we talked about the crusades. We read from story of the world (who did such an excellent job of concisely telling what happened.) and watch a few "Horrible Histories." We made shields with a coat of arms on them as our activity.
This is Abraham's coat of arms that is all about zombies.
One day we read about King Richard the Lionheart, but we didn't do anything. (By the way, he was pretty horrible-not like all the Robin Hood movies portray.)
Then of course we talked about ROBIN HOOD! How fun. My kids were surprised that he wasn't fictional. Well, apparently, we don't actually know how fictional he was, but I like to believe that it's all real, so why not. As our activity I gave them bows and arrows.
They were hooligans running around the house and being crazy with glee. Very cute fun.
Then we talked about the Magna Carta. We talked about how Prince John became such a horrifically bad king, that it was a blessing, because everyone ganged up on him and made him sign a document that would make the king not as strong as the law.
It was interesting. I remember four years ago when we read a book about this, and they said the the pope was so frustrated with King John that he excommunicated him and then took all the clergy out of England. And we talked about how crazy it would be if the government made it so the church closed down and you couldn't go to church or have church ordinances like marriage and funerals and baptisms.
Now, four years later, we were reading this, but now when we came to this part and talked about churches being shut down....ummm...churches ARE shut down!!! It just reinforced to me what a twilight zone we're living in right now!!
Hyrum asked me if COVID19 was an important part of history, and I said that absolutely it was and that it will be in every history book and always remembered, and he got so excited and he stared singing the end of the Classical Conversations Timeline song and made up a new end that included COVID, and he said "I'm so excited for them to change the song and include that part!"
Yep.
Anyway, we also talked about how King John and all the nobles probably couldn't even read the Magna Carta and we talked about manuscripts and how pretty much only the church wrote and copied anything.
For our activity, we made illuminations.
I was pretty proud about how smooth the progression of history topics went. Muhammad to pilgrims to crusades to Richard to Robin Hood to King John and the Magna Carta. It just flows right into the next.
We of course did the essential learning as well. This is that "magical" month where I actually get out my Alberta checklist and determine what is lacking and make sure we do it so we can fulfill the checklists.
I'm feeling lazy so I'm being a bit of a hypocrite. Yes, I'm actually having my kids do ExamBank.
I feel sheepish. I kind of headed off this campaign to NOT have ExamBank as part of out Westwind schooling. BUT I AM still against how they were actually doing it. The east end were REQUIRING you to do it EVERY week as proof of learning. That's just nonsense. It's like constant government testing! No thank you.
But an end of year assessment that you choose to do instead of finding every example you need to from your own curriculum, is very different. We don't have to send it off to John if we don't like the score. We haven't loved the scores enough to send them off yet.
Also, this is the time of year for Brianpop study. The kids actually really love this. I haven't made sure that they're doing everything, but I will, and it makes my life easier.
Now, as an update on our All About Reading adventure, we had a BREAK THROUGH. It had everything to do with these:
They call them "word flippers" and they are genius. William has always sounded out Every. Single. Letter. for Every. Single. Word. You can never learn how to read if you stay that way. You eventually need to get (oh heavens I forgot the term for it) but that automatic recognition of groups of sounds and eventually words.
This, of course, is one of the hardest things for a dyslexic child to do, and I couldn't remember how my older kids eventually overcame this hurdle. I thought it had a lot to do with Barton's smooth hand motions to help them smoothly blend the sounds of the words.
William read from these word flippers, and instead of sounding out every word, just sounded out the first word. Once he got "pit" he could easily read "bit," "hit," "fit," etc. I was ecstatic. He felt like he wasn't really reading because he knew he wasn't actually sounding it all out, and I had to assure him that he was reading correctly, and it has slowly started to affect the rest of his reading.
I made a hard decision this week. I decided to teach William and Abraham separately. It was just getting too crazy teaching them both and maintaining their attentions and having them take turns. We'll see if that was a good decision.
In other news, we've had easter. We had baskets and made Easter eggs
We also made lego Easter eggs..and bunnies.
We did this as part of Janet's challenges. She's so awesome. The kids need something to feel connected.
Of course, online connections still happening:
And my boys have started "visiting" friends outside of their windows. What a weird world.
But today was a nice day, and I think it's actually beginning to be spring. We've had a few more snow storms since this whole thing started, and I'm ready for summer and freedom.
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