I think much of our Ambleside Online plans will be put on hold for the month and instead we'll focus on stories and such about Britain in preparation for our trip. This morning we started reading David Macaulay's Castle. After about 20 minutes of that, I tried to switch to one of the Shakepseare History plays in Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories, but was pre-empted. P said "I really want to use this book to play We Are The People." He took the book and they disappeared inside for a few minutes. When they came back out they all had parts: P was, I think, the master engineer, M the mason, and E the blacksmith and the miner. They busily made the tools they needed and built a castle, while I read David McCullough's 1776 in preparation for a unit on the American Revolution that I hope to lead for our co-op after the holidays. It was fun to listen to them "narrate" what I had just read to them.
We just went to the library and I got out a pile of books on Britain, but didn't find a good history. So I think I'll revisit stories from An Island Story: specifically the Romans (because we will visit some Roman ruins) and The Princes in the Tower (because they had a connection to Ludlow, where we will visit). I'm sure I pick a few others. I'm going to encourage P to read Dawn Wind by Rosemary Sutcliffe, and maybe some other books set in Britain. The sights all bounce around in chronology -- I'm sure the two younger won't be able to make sense of that. Oh well. And M (7) is very interested in Vikings right now, so we'll probably continue with those books (Viking Tales and Viking Raiders). We're flying through Iceland, but decided not to do a layover -- the Viking sights could have been fun.
I'm also looking for appropriate movies with British settings so that they can perhaps recognize some places from the. Other recommendations are most welcome!
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3 comments:
That sounds like fun! Isn't the library wonderful? They unwittingly supplied all our history books this year.
Hmmm, movies with a British setting. So many show Buckingham Palace and Big Ben... And then there's the countryside. I would suggest "National Lampoons European Vacation", but that might not be appropriate for the children. LOL
My family has enjoyed Eva March Tappan. We read The Story of the Greek People but she also wrote one about the Roman people and one called England's Story. These are all out of copyright and available through Google Books. Ms. Tappan was an American author from Central MA, too.
The trip sounds fabulous!
I'm passing this on to you old friend (you're not old, just the friendship, LOL!)
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