Story of the World Vol 2 Chapters 37, 38 and 39

I cancelled history club last month because we had just returned from our Spring Vacation and I was still feeling very unsettled and overwhelmed.  So after a 2 month break from the club, it felt good to get back into it again.  We had gorgeous weather for our meeting and we had a ton of fun.

Chapter 37 was about Galileo and his impact on the religions of his time.  Sadly I have no pictures of our "Pisa Drop" activity, where we learned that objects dropped from the same height at the same time will hit the ground simultaneously regardless of weight.  Thank you gravity!

Chapter 38 was all about Good Queen Bess. We learned the Queen Elizabeth was so loved by her people that they even made buildings in the shape of an E, with gardens in between the arms of the E.  So we set to work using a variety of blocks to make a large E on the living room floor. The kids got creative with colored dominoes, bristle blocks, play mobiles and actual flowers from the yard to create the gardens and impromptu farm life too.

During Elizabethan times the people had some very interesting home remedies.  Here are a few that we tried today:
1. Eat molasses covered spiders (cooked spaghetti) to give you a quick pick-me-up. I tried to make little bundles of noodles that were tied together with another noodle. I put them in the fridge over night so they'd be a little stiff. It kinda worked.  The kids said they were gross.  Yeah.

2.  Egg yolk, flowers and vinegar to make a salve for "boo-boos".

"Ok, mom, now what?"  

3.  Get rid of your cough with cherry tree bark and maple syrup made as a tea.  We used cinnamon sticks instead.  The kids actually really liked this.  Some of them mixed it with milk and really loved it! And the house smelled great.

4. Can't sleep? Drink some sleeping potion made from wilted lettuce leaves in hot chicken broth.  I actually used cabbage, so it didn't wilt much.  The kids said this was super gross.  And nobody fell asleep! Dang it!

 Chapter 39 was all about Shakespeare.  We acted out a scene from McBeth when the three weird women make their Eye-of-Newt Soup.  This was by far the most fun activity. First I had the kids dress up as weird witches and wizards.  Basically I just gave them my bucket of dress up clothes and let them get creative.

The activity book by Susan Wise Bauer


 suggests putting each of the soup ingredients into separate labeled jars that are dumped into the cauldron one by one as they are mentioned by the weird women.  I adapted her idea by making it a "lower-sugar" version of the recipe.  Here's what we added to our Eye-of-Newt soup:
Fingers = Red Vines cut in half (instead of tootsie rolls)
Eyes of Newts = Red, bumpy coated peanuts (instead of chocolate chips)
Tongue of Dog = Dried mango slices (instead of red licorice)
Lizard's Leg = Pretzel sticks (I kept this idea since it was non-sugar)
Owlet's wings = mini marshmallows ( I kept this idea too since I have no idea what owlet wings are supposed to look like)
Scale of dragons = Banana chips (instead of smarties)
Tooth of Wolf = pumpkin seeds (instead of candy corn)
Gall of goat =  raisins (again, I kept this idea since it wasn't candy)

Cup of Baboon's blood = unsweetened cranberry juice.  That's right! NO SUGAR BABY.

So I put these items in jars and I gave each child a jar to hold.

I taught the kids to say the lines "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble" as they marched around the cauldron (large plastic bowl on the floor).   Then as I continued to read the poem/spell/recipe/ they each dumped in their jar of ingredients when indicated.

The best part was drinking the baboon's blood. Like I said, it had no sugar. So I only gave them a teeny sip to try.  Here's how most of them reacted.

Don't worry, they each got a baggie of snacks from the cauldron of Eye-of-Newt Soup to make it go down a little easier.

I think the kids enjoyed the 20 minutes of free time with friends best of all. They took advantage of the beautiful sunshine today to jump on the trampoline, ride bikes and play on the swing set.  It was a great morning!

Story of the World Vol. 2 Chapter 38

Every fourth Tuesday we host friends to review what we've been learning in Story of the World Vol. 2. I call it history club. On the other Tuesdays we study on our own from STOW 2.  Today we did chapter 38 and enjoyed learning about Elizabethan fashion.  Check out our fancy collars and coloring pages.  We had some trouble getting our collars to stick out around the neck.  I think we liked the "stand-up" version better than the "lay-down" version.  We used about 2 feet of butcher paper that was cut lengthwise and then folded it accordion style.

For this "lay-down" version we taped together several of our folded accordions to get more length and then stapled the pleats together at the neck to get a gathered look.  Still didn't really work that great. I think we could have cut the butcher paper in half again to get more of a stiff collar look.

Check the royalty looking down on her subjects.

Story of the World Vol 2: Chapters 31, 32, 33

I always look forward to the 4th Tuesday of the month when our friends come over to help us review what we have learned in the last three weeks of Story of the World.  This month we covered chapters 31-33 of volume 2, which focus on Christopher Columbus and other explorers to the New World, as well as the people they encountered there.

During the first three Tuesdays of the month, we study the chapters at home as a family.  I read the chapter to the kids while they color the picture that comes in the activity book.  Then we do the map work, and I pick one of the activities to do. I always look ahead to see which activities are best to do as a family, which I want to save for the History Club.

Today, I decided to start off the club with a simple game that I put together.  It was a watered down version of Jeopardy.  I did this at 12:30am, so cut me some slack. I know it's not pretty.  All I did was copy some of the narration questions from each chapter onto construction paper, assign it a dollar value ($1, $5 or $10 depending on the difficulty of the question) and then tape them to the white board.  I used Monopoly game money to award the cash values. 

I broke the kids into 3 teams, letting them buddy up with a similarly aged friend.  I made it clear that the money was not the real motive for the game and we shouldn't fight or argue over it. It was just an added touch to make things more interesting.  They caught on quick and were even helping each other out.

So here's my lame game board:

It was fun! I think it was a GREAT way to review the chapters.

From there I took the kids out to the garage to simulate corn grinding on a metate.  I gave them some popcorn kernels and a rock and let them smash it to dust!  WHo wouldn't love the chance to smash something and not get in trouble, right?  I wish I had taken pictures because they really did a great job.

Then, in honor of Christopher Columbus' voyage, I took the kids upstairs to my bathtub where I had prepared a boat race.  But this wasn't just any boat race.  Oh no. This one involved a chemical reaction, baby.

The activity book says to make the boats by putting straws in the bottom of a plastic bottle.  But I had no straws at 11:30 last night, so I ended up using medicine syringes that I had in the vitamin cupboard, poking them into the lid, and hot gluing around the edges so that there weren't leaks.  Here's how it ended up.

I really think straws would have worked better, because it would have been a smaller opening and provided more thrust.  But hey, we do what we can in a pinch.

So I set up the tub with our boats, vinegar, baking soda, blue water, funnel and measuring spoon.

It was way too crazy to take pictures once the boat races began.  But I sure wish you could have seen the fizz blasting and spraying out on everyone, and heard the shrieks and squeals and laughter as we launched those babies in the tub!

Here's the happy crew

The boats worked so-so. They eventually did make it to the end of the tub after our 4th or 5th try. Tip:  Use PLENTY of vinegar and give it a little shake so that it mixes with all the baking soda. I think we put in about 2 TB of baking soda. I don't know how much vinegar!

Ok, so we toweled off and headed to the kitchen for some eats!

First, I had the kids help me start a pot of hot chocolate.  I wish that I'd had the ingredients from the activity book to make a more authentic south american hot chocolate, but I didn't.  So, again, I improvise and go with my standard recipe.  Here it is: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/creamy-hot-cocoa/

I used powdered milk instead of fresh.  Helps cut down on our grocery budget and nobody can tell the difference when you're cooking or baking with it.  We made a double batch. 

Once that was well on it's way and heating on the stove, I let the kids help me mix up some MASA (corn flour) and water to make corn tortillas.  

This amount of dough made 16 tortillas.  I love my little tortilla press and my Lodge Logic griddle. THey are perfect for making the perfect tortilla.

                   

You could also just place the dough between a gallon size plastic bag that is cut on 3 sides and press down with a frying pan.  

The kids gobbled those tortillas right up! Plain! They were dunking them in cocoa, until the asked for salsa.  I was surprised how well they liked them.

Of course, I have a soft spot for corn tortillas. In 1996 when I was a sophomore in college I went on a 3 months field study to Guatemala to study courtship and marriage customs among the Mayans living in the highlands there. I stayed with a family in the village of Ixtahuacan.  Every morning I woke to the sound of the women patting and slapping corn dough in their hands (no fancy presses there!) to make our morning tortillas.

In fact, I got out some of my souvenirs from Guatemala to show the kids:   This is a traditional huipil and skirt. I did a horrible job putting this on my daughter.  The belt is super long and I had to hurry to tie it on her because I had tortillas burning on the griddle, cocoa bubbling on the stove and yams turning to mush in the oven!  Whoa! Our kitchen was one hoppin' place for a minute there.

Ok, so we got the food all done and set down to munch while I showed the kids some fun books: 

and this one 

I've been to Tikal and I meant to dig out my photos to show the kids, but time was running really short.  If you ever watch the old Star Wars movies, watch for the scene where they are on top of some Mayan looking temples, and it's overlooking the tops of the trees.  I SWEAR it's TIKAL!  Been there! And I loved it.

So that was class.  I'll share a little known fact with you now, that I failed to share with the kids.  Yours Truly is a published author! Yes indeed.  I have a written work in this book: 

You can look inside the cover and find my name next to the article entitled "The Commitment" Transformations in courtship and Marriage in Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan.

It took years for that book to get published, but there it is!

 

Organizing a History Club using Story of the World

I'm late blogging about this.  SURPRISE.

But towards the beginning of the year, I started a new "history club" at our home based on Story of the World Vol 2.  Do you know it took us 18 months to do Vol 1?  But I don't feel bad.   I was pregnant with no. 4 and had a newborn during that time.

The club is small this time.  Just my 4 kids and 5 other girls that are the ages of my oldest two.  Is nine kids still small?  (Some time I'll tell you about the fun club we ran a couple years back based on Kaya from the American Girls Series).

Anyway, I made it extra low-key this time, because the last time I ran a club for the girls it was too big, too much work, and I got burned out really fast.

Here's how it's set up:

Each family is supposed to study 1 chapter per week at home.  We do this for 3 weeks in a row.   Every 4th Tuesday, we get together at my house to do related activities and projects from the book.  I don't do any of the coloring or map work or narratives during group. That all happens at home with the family.  During club, we get right to the hands-on portion of the units.  I try to pick one project from each chapter but it doesn't always work out that way. I try to schedule 30 mins. for each activity with a total of 3-4 activities per meeting.  We meet for 90 minutes.  Two hours would probably be better because I often run out of time, but then it starts to cramp lunch and naps.

So far it works really well for us.  It's not over-taxing for me.  But it's enough variety and social interaction to keep the course interesting for the kids.  And the once-a-month meetings are spaced far enough apart that I don't mind putting my best effort and a little time into making it super fun for the kids.

Here's a picture from our first meeting when we dressed up like Monks.  Each girl chose one of the different Monk professions to act out (teacher, writer, carpenter, doctor).  I don't think this particular activity was in the book. Turned out fun!

Here's the teacher being portrayed in our living room.  We had one of the girls being director and another being camera person.

Here's another day when we dressed like Celtic warriors and then acted out our attack on the Romans.  This was before the face paint. Too bad I don't have a pic WITH face paint.  It was pretty intense.

During the weeks when it's just us studying at home, I pick one activity to do with the kids.  Of course, I make sure it's not one that I've got planned for the club.

Here's an activity we did on our own at home.  We made an oasis from a variety of mediums including pipe cleaners, legos, playmobiles, gram crackers, counting cubes, and clay.

We all very much enjoy this curriculum. It's our favorite class of the week.  I'll try harder to blog about our fun club meetings as well as our family history activities.

And when I get my other pics downloaded, I'll have to show you the Viking Funeral that we had in our turtle pool, complete with wild and crazy flames!!  Too fun.

Story of the World - Mud Bricks

I've been really bad about posting on this site. Most days I feel like what we're doing is pretty run of the mill and not exciting enough to post here. That and a significant time shortage translate into very few posts.

But, better late than never, I say. So here are a couple of "fun" things we did back in November.

1) Making outdoor art.

And for Story of the World, we went outside to experiment with making mud bricks during our unit on the Indus Valley Civilizations.


We also had a pretty good time making up our own story about what could have possibly happened to the Mojenjo Daro city. I think our version of its disappearance involved alien abdutions.