I confess, that this time of year I have spring fever pretty bad. It's just as hard for me (if not harder) to concentrate on school as it is for the kids. Sometimes it's just grit-your-teeth-and-get-it-done when I'd really rather be putzing in the garden or laying on the deck catching fleeting bursts of sun rays.
But we're hanging tough these last few weeks of school.
And thank goodness for fun things like history club to break things up and give us some comic relief.
As usual, I didn't get pics of everything we did. Like the Sir Walter Raleigh quote that we discussed and colored. It gave us a chance to talk about the importance of studying history and why we bother to take time to do this class.
We also talked about the Canadian colonies among the Micmac Indians. We made fish flakes from popsicle sticks. We drew fish on our popsicle sticks, mixed them up, and then asked a partner to put the sticks back in order to form the picture again. Like a puzzle.
The Micmac Indians lived in wigwams (which looked an awful lot like tee-pees) so the kids got a chance to figure out how to make a wigwam together using brooms and a blanket.
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| It was tricky at first!! |
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| Success! |
We talked about how the Spanish Armada was defeated by the English Navy. When the English received news that the Armada was coming up the channel, the Brittish navy officers were in the middle of a game of lawn bowling. They calmly finished their game before heading out to conquer the Spanish.
So here's our little indoor version of Lawn Bowling. The tennis balls each have a unique combination of colored rubber bands on them to distinguish them from the others. The objective is to get your ball as close to the marble as possible. The white board in the back simply had a list of participants and what their ball was marked with. It also helped us keep track of who's turn it was.
Then we folded paper boats, which turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. Eventually every one ended up with a paper boat. My kids remembered one of our history club activities from last year when we held a Viking funeral in our back yard (that means we burned a mini boat with a fake dead guy on it as we pushed him out to sea). And they wanted a repeat experience. So I agreed to let them burn their boats in the turtle pool again. But it was such a windy day and the boats got wet so quickly that none of them really burned enough to give us a good show.
After some free time the kids came in for a snack. yeah, I only shop every 2 weeks and I was getting low on my rations, so the kids got cantaloupe, nachos, and popcorn. Mmm...good job rounding out that meal mom! And the special treat was orange juice...something that I RARELY let my kids have. We normally stick to water or milk.
While the kids munch we talked about some of our favorite history club activities and memories from the past year together. It was a great review of our good times and fun lessons.
I'm really not sure what we'll do for history this fall. Honestly, my brain is too fried to think about it right now. A friend said she had not heard great things about STOW 3. I haven't check it out yet, but if anyone reading this has a review to share about STOW 3, I'd love to hear it. But I'm sure I'll be checking out other options too. I think I need a break from this format. We'll see. Come fall I always have renewed strength and energy.
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