We’re using Story of the World Book 2 with our history etc monthly meetup. The idea is that each family does the reading separately and then we come together once a month and each family brings one or two craft type activities that support the reading we’ve all been doing. As we only got the book just over a week ago, we’re a bit behind with the reading, but we read the relevant bits and came up with a suitable activity.
The chapters we were looking at were 10 to 13 – First ppl in australias, Kingdom of the Franks, Islamic invasion of Spain and Charles the Hammer. The activity our family brought was to design your own kingdom – draw a map, put together a dynasty/ family tree, come up with some laws. I expected it to be the activity that the children turned to if they were at a loose end between other more crafts. Instead I found myself with a table full of children gleefully filling paper with their own kingdoms, and coming up with the most bizarre and wondrous justice systems. The conversations continued on and off throughout the day with alliances forming between the newly formed kingdoms and so on – a really thought provoking activity.
As usual the other participants brought some fabulous crafts. Merry brought Fimo from her CraftMerrily shop and some fabulous dot pictures of lizards and koalas were made. Helen provided chalk and the children blew aboriginal style chalk dust drawings. Zoe did snacks, face (or hand) painting and also stood in with the soap for a carving activity. Gina had dreamcatchers and Katy made Charles the Hammer’s sword as well as leading a play about justice and laws. I think that covers all the activities – I apologise profusely if I’ve missed any! I have got some pictures, though as usual not as many as I should have had. I was slightly distracted by an email conversation with dp about the leaking radiator in our bedroom at home 🙁
Which is the reason we aren’t at home tonight. Instead we’re stopping an extra evening with our friends – the children are currently ensconced in front of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
while Helen and I sit companionably side by side, netbooks on knee.
And that was home education for the day. Out of the home, very much not sitting on our own round the kitchen table. Hopefully that’s another myth/ stereotype well and truly dealt with 😉
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