Medieval Faire

 

Several weeks ago we had the opportunity to attend a Medieval Faire at some beautiful castle ruins.  The grounds were staffed with a reenactment troupe, and they had many different activities going on.  Although my primary intention was to bring a nice end to Sunburst's study of the middle ages, there was something fun for everyone.  It was a really grand day.... and it didn't rain once!

First of all, the castle itself was fantastic to behold.

 

 

 

 

There was an immaculate Elizabethan garden filled with herbs and flowers.  At the far end of the garden is a large cage filled with a few local birds, including pheasants.  We felt a bit sorry for them having to live in such a small cage.

Then there were the reenactments.  They had some kind of show going on every half hour, from trials to jousts to exhibitions.  Canons were fired, and soldiers made quite a show marching around in their armor.

My favorite part was walking around talking to the reenactors.  Some of them were very well informed about their time period, especially the map-maker and the stained glass-maker.  I was so absorbed in the conversations I missed the opportunity to take many pictures.  However, here are a few examples of the things we saw:

Canon ball carving.

 

Arrow making.

Cart building.

 

The games tent, where Kitty Bill was completely absorbed in a game of Glückhaus.

  

 

Medieval music on the recorder.

 

Cooking, in all it's manifestations.

 

I did manage to take a couple of pictures at the mapmaker's tent, two that I was really excited to share with you all.  Remember the measurement block from Waldorf Grade 3 where children learn the earliest forms of measurement?  Moonshine saw this picture that the mapmaker had drawn and nearly jumped up and down about it.  It's a furlong!!

What a great image for the main lesson book, no?  I will definitely be drawing from this when it's Kitty Bill's turn to do measurement.

The mapmaker was so impressed that Moonshine knew what a furlong was, and of course this tickled Moonshine to no end.  Then the mapmaker showed Moonshine an antiquated chain and quizzed her on how many chains make a furlong, and so forth.  You can see the chain on the left.

 

I think it's pretty telling that of all the attractions of the day, this was the crowning glory.  As homeschoolers, we put forth so much effort into creating a sense of understanding within our children.   It's not often that we get to see some of the archaic knowledge come spilling back out of them.  The wonder and recognition was really palpable in that moment.  Rods and chains and furlongs-- they really do exist!

As for Sunburst, she wandered off after the jousting display, and we knew exactly where we'd find her.  We only had to follow the scent of horses...

 

 

On our way out, the girls and I ran into the shoemaker's tent and ended up in a lengthy discussion about the proper way to make shoes in the middle ages.  We watched him work for quite awhile, and it was so fascinating!  The girls had endless questions, but I finally had to pull them away for the long drive home.  I'm sure it's a day that they won't soon forget.

B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y W-O-R-D-S

About a month ago I had a birthday. I'm now fully ensconced in my mid-thirties, if you must know. And it's okay, this birthday stuff. After all, there is cake... and who can turn down a good cake? Plus I get presents! We're not really all that different from our kids, are we? I like presents just as much as they do. And it's even better when the present is actually something you like. And will use.

I'm not usually one to brag, but this year I got the best present ever. And no, I don't mean the shiny earrings, though they were quite nice, too. I'm talking about this lovely thing here:

It looks like a banana, you say? Well, yes. But when you peel it open, it's a whole different kind of thing. It's a game called Bananagrams. This banana holds 144 letter tiles so that you can build your own Scrabbley kind of word set-up. It's genius, actually. Rather than playing off another person's words, you play off your own. The object is to use all your letters first... and in order to do that you can change them and move them around as needed, rather than just adding onto them or leaving them stagnant as you do in Scrabble. It doesn't have to be a winners/losers scenario either... you can play nice. And you can play solo. And you can play several rounds a night for days on end.

I think I just let out my inner-Scrabble-geek.

But ah, well. My family knows me well enough to understand how much fun I would have with this game. And the best part is that they are enjoying it, too. Sunburst can also play along at her own spelling level, and although admittedly they have each taken to giving me a large handicap, it's fun for everyone. And whether she realizes it or not, it's homeschooling, too.

And the cake? It was carrot. And pretty good, too, even if it did nearly singe my hair while I was trying to blow all those flaming candles out. Next year? Fewer candles!

A big attitude and a little math (Part 2)

Our next math story juxtaposed the behavior of two eight-year-old girls named Clara. Our regular Clara, the one that Sunburst readily identifies with, played the compassionate helper. The other Clara was mouthy and rude, though she came around in the end. It was an interesting lesson to create because Sunburst's behavior has dipped into this other Clara category lately, and it was remarkable to watch her listening and sympathizing with both Claras. I think it helped.

In this story, the other Clara mouthed off to the King's son. Luckily, her punishment from the King was merely a challenge. She was to report to the royal palace for some sort of mathematics quiz. Unfortunately, the other Clara didn't really know much math, so we spent some time helping her prepare. -- A welcome chance for me to see exactly how much Sunburst has really retained.

First we timed ourselves using holey cards. This was great for Sunburst to practice her time-telling skills timing me. And I noticed that she uses her fingers more often when adding certain numbers, so I had her make a couple of flash cards with those problems. Next we played around with some Math Wrap-ups, printed out a couple of worksheets, and broached the subject of place value again, because you never know just what the King's quiz was going to entail.

Sunburst, being my bigger-faster-louder child, was thrilled with the prospect that the numbers could just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. We learn most things under the guise of "Clara's love of learning" so it was really great when Clara shouted from the rootops, "I can count to ONE BILLION!" It certainly got Sunburst's attention.



Then we had another day of gorgeous weather, and not sure what to do next, I ended up creating a game called "The Human Calculator." I gave her the sums, and Sunburst enjoyed jumping from number to number to create the problems. She even game me a turn on the calculator, though admittedly I'm far from being able to jump just yet. All in all it was great! She replayed the scenario for Einstein, her dad, when he came home.



As a last fun thing, I presented Sunburst with a computer game that Einstein came up with using NetLogo. It's actually an Ed/Psych experiment designed to explore learning patterns, but once I saw it I knew it was perfect for our story. He helped me create an interactive Clara at the bottom of the screen that flaps her arms up and down with every correct answer.



As the Royal Quiz approached, everyone in the kingdom fell ill with the same intestinal illness. Everyone except our Clara, that is. The royal well had been contaminated, and our Clara always carts along bottled water wherever she goes. So Clara, with her knowledge of herbs, became the caretaker to everyone in the kingdom, including the king himself. In order to take care of everyone she had to manage her time extremely well. In the end everyone was nursed back to health, including the other Clara. Both Claras were ordered to appear before the King. The other Clara gave a heartfelt, sincere apology and the royal quiz took place. For the quiz I used the Martha and John math story from Path of Discovery Grade 1, which I had meant to use last year but never quite got around to it. Great fun! Then both Claras stayed for the Royal Feast where the King thanked our Clara for her loving heart, hard work, and impeccable ability to manage her time well. As a token of appreciation Clara was given this:



It was a huge surprise for Sunburst, and she has been keeping us apprised of the time every few minutes ever since.

A big attitude and a little math (Part 1)

Do you ever get the urge to flush them down the toilet?*

Sunburst has been driving me crazy! There, I said it. It's true. She's been mouthy and rude and inattentive to oh, everything we say. Her nose is almost constantly plugged into a book. And when it's not she's inadvertently doing something to make Moonshine and Kitty Bill screech! Sunburst has hit this pinching, pushing, tripping, tricking, ignoring, goading, annoying stage... and oh! I'm just at a loss with her. It could be that she's eight, do you think?

With the weather so nice and warm a couple of weeks ago, I made an executive decision to drop our language arts block and forge ahead. I was hoping that giving her some "headier" work would give her that challenge she was constantly looking for. I got the feeling that she needed to control something. Own something. Feel bigger, in a sense. And I think it worked, sort of.

We returned to our math story I was telling back in November just before the car accident. Poor Clara! You see, we had abandoned her at an inn during a terrible storm, where she and Beremiz were playing dice games to pass the time. We revisited that lesson, and then moved on to another dice game they had played in our absence, The Matterhorn. (I love how these story people seem to go on without us sometimes.)

The Matterhorn is a great game for teaching number values. The jist of the game is to get up and down the mountain via rolling three dice. The mountain is comprised of two number lines, 1-12 (which is the peak) and then 12-1. You have to roll each value to climb and then decend the mountain, but luckily you can add the dice values. For example, if your first roll gives you the values 1, 2, and 2, you can make the sums 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Then you would roll again. It's supposed to be a contest between players, but we just played singularly with much shouting and cheering.



Then the weather got really warm. When it's so nice outside the kids are out the door before I've finished my morning coffee, so our next few lessons were totally off the cuff. Standing there on the back walk I eyed the sidewalk chalk and remembered how impressed Sunburst was that her friend The Artist has his own watch and is learning to tell time. Voila! A lesson was born.

I drew a huge circle on the back porch. That alone brought the kids running over with curiosity. As they walked around and around the circle I began the story.

It was finally time for Clara and Beremiz to leave the inn. He told Clara to meet him at 8:00 sharp the next morning so they could eat a quick breakfast and set off. But Clara had a problem. She didn't have a watch. Nor did she know how to tell time. Beremiz loaned her one, and we set to work on the "learning" portion.

First we added the numbers.
Next I handed Sunburst a kiddie-sized rake and set her to working the hour hand.




Once she had that down, then Sunburst set to work marking off the individual minutes.




Then, with a bamboo stake, she worked the minute hand.



The rain washed away our clock and Sunburst drew it back, every minute accounted for. At that point it was clear that Clara was ready to meet Beremiz on time, and we were off. Again. And though I didn't plan for it, a lesson emerged that touched on Sunburst's atrocious behavior. Clara and Beremiz met a bereaved mother on the side of the road. Her eight-year-old daughter had taken her own boasting and rudeness too far. She mouthed off to the King's son, and now the whole family was in hot water over it. Unless the girl would come forward and hear her punishment from the King, the family would lose its farm.

Tsk. Tsk.

Sunburst thought surely there must be something Clara could do to help.



*Larger than life toilet brought to you by Kid's Commons, a children's museum we recently visited. That's me living my dreams as I attempted to flush Sunburst down the toilet. The kids really DO love to climb down inside of it, spurred on by the actual flushing noise it makes, where they enter the bowels of a house and explore all the hidden staircases and so forth. Very cool.

More games

We're having some more off-time over at our little homeschool. I managed to pass that nasty flu-bug to each of the kids, and they've been coughing their heads off for the last two days. Anything that looks even remotely like school is out of the question, unless, of course it's some kind of a game.

Enter Kitty Bill, the tiny mastermind. He has been taken with the Langwister cards and has begun distributing them throughout the house. Both his placement of the cards and the successive attempts to clean up said cards has prompted further game play.

We used this verse from A Child's Seasonal Treasury.

We're stepping over stepping stones, 1, 2, 3
We're stepping over stepping stones, come with me
The river's very fast, and the river's very wide
We'll step across the stepping stones to reach the other side.

Today, the girls pulled themselves together enough to play "Cross the River" with me, and they had a fun time and completely forgot to cough for a few minutes. It was great.

We spaced the cards out like stepping stones across the rug in our main room, and in order to "Cross the River" we had to call out the name of the cards before we could step on them. In German, of course, although I watched Moonshine do it in English and it seemed just as challenging to her in either language. I wonder if that has something to do with her age and general dreaminess. It never occurred to me before that four-year-olds would need to stop and rifle through that filing system in their brains to come up with a word they so obviously know in their native tongue to match it to a picture. It was interesting to observe.

When they're feeling better, I'd like to take this game to a more social, cooperative level with them. Give them the stack of cards and a task (ex. Get from Point A to point B without touching the floor.) And then let them use the cards as they need them. Maybe give Moonshine a couple of "magic" cards (like free spaces) so she can hold her own. It would be great to have more kids to help problem solve, but for now, we'll just have to work with what we have.

I was also thinking that the stepping stones idea would work well for math sums. I like the idea of having a sum on each card, and then they have to announce a problem for it (ex. "16" on the card, and they can say "10+6" or "2x8" or "20-4".) From whole to parts. I bet that would be fun.

The other game, the picking up game, doesn't have much to it. The cards are tired and they want to sleep. So the kids need to collect the cards, "Die Katze ist müde." "Guten Nacht, die kleine Katze." And so on... I'm learning if you say anything with enough enthusiasm it catches like fire.

Tough choices

We reached a milestone in education today.

At the Farmer's Market this morning Sunburst was faced with the tough decision between purchasing Lacinato or Red Russian kale. To help her make the decision, the seller did a bit of choosing hocus pocus, otherwise known as "Eeny Meeny."

You remember:

Eeny meeny miney moe
Catch a tiger by the toe
If he howls let him go
Eeny meeny miney moe
My mother said to pick the very best one
And you are not it.

I don't remember the first time I heard that as a kid, but this was it for Sunburst. She was taken, smitten, truly enchanted by the power and charm of Eeny Meeny. I heard her chanting it under her breath for the better part of the day, over and over again, trying to conjure up the magic spell that puts all mindless choosing up to a simple draw.

When I figured out what she was after we staged some fake choosing with random items on the table: scissors, a sparkly pencil, purple thread, and a press 'n play dress. It was great. We were choosing up a storm, reciting Eeny Meeny over and over, at least a dozen times. Sunburst's face lit up each and every time, and you know, it was fun. I can't believe she never heard Eeny Meeny before. I used to Eeny Meeny all the time as a kid. What happened to me? What about my magic?

I know what you're thinking-- I'm thinking it too. The time has come for me to take my Eeny Meeny powers back.

While Sunburst and I were sitting at the table choosing, Einstein came out of the kitchen with a life-altering question of his own: dinner. He was making some concoction of red rice, potatoes, corn and faux sausage. His quandry was sauce: Tomato or Cuban Mojito? I gave him my expert advice...

Eeny Meeny Miney Moe...

It isn't good to overuse that kind of hocus pocus though. Sometimes you have to branch out and use other forms of choosing, especially when there is more at stake than kale or sauce type. Usually those times are marked by folks having deep and differing opinions, stubbornness, and/or a special talent in the tantrum throwing category. We encountered just that situation today when sitting down to play the cooperative game Let's Go Sailing.

I love cooperative games. There's nothing better than sitting down to play a game with the kids and instead of winning, losing, and discusions about throwing pieces and sportsmanship, you can just peacefully work together to achieve a group goal. Cooperation. Joy. Peace. It was going to be great.

We sat down to play, and the first thing you do as a group is decide what to name your ship. It's a sailing game after all.

"Ladybug," offered Sunburst.
"Shoeburger," said Moonshine.
"Shoeburger?" Einstein and I echoed in unison.
"Ladybug," said Sunburst.
"I change my mind," said Moonshine. "I want Rose."
"Shoeburger." I said.
"We like Shoeburger," said Einstein. "It's funny."
"I want Ladybug," said Sunburst.
"No! ROSE!" squealed Moonshine.
"How about Ladybug Rose?" I offered.
"NO!!!"

Apparently our ability to cooperate was deteriorating before our ship left port. It was obvious we were not going to agree on a name, so I introduced a more impartial decision-making system: the lottery. Four slips of paper. Four different names. We put them in a knit cap and tried to get Kitty Bill to choose as the innocent bystander. Ha. He wanted nothing to do with our reindeer games so I was forced to pick. It was with great relief that "Lady Rose Shoeburger" finally headed out to sea.


P.S. Dinner was good too. You can find the Cuban Mojitos at Trader Joes.