Mapping out the Middle Ages

We will begin the next season of schooling here the end of this week, with a jaunt thru the Middle Ages. We have an interest here with knights, castles, Robin Hood and King Arthur's legends so I'm planning out the next year to focus on this time frame.
I am totally not above exploiting a current interest for the sake of schooling!

So, for the past few weeks I have been browsing websites and book lists, printing reams of pages for lengthy lapbook and notebook selections, organizing our necessary readers here at home, downloading free resources to iBooks and our Kindle app, and browsing used books for deals on good books to use this next season. I have been to AmblesideOnline, Tanglewood Curriculum We will utilize the idea of notebooking and lapbooking for the majority of our work this year. With a topic like Medieval Times, we probably won't stick to conventional lapbooking though, and will put together a mutated version combining the best of both styles.  I am looking at inexpensive artist sketch books for our notebook foundation. If I can't find them on the cheap, we will probably just go with bulk cardstock or cover stock paper and 3-hole them into binders.

I have now re-organized our main school shelves to accommodate our resources, loaded several large binders with print-outs ready for use, set up the work boxes to organize the daily work, and I am hoping to find goodies to decorate our bulletin board as well.



So...what are our plans? Varied, of course, with my range of ages from 6yo up to 14yo. My main helper day to day will be my right hand, 17yo daughter. Here's our general layout...

Bible
Calvary Children's Ministry lessons, 1-2 lessons/week, keeping the subject together
Understanding Charlotte a CM blog has some reading plans already laid out as well We will probably pick up with these and notebook/illustrate each reading for our notebooks
Amblesideonline's Hymn Study, 1/week
Little Folded Hands, Prayers for Children for memory work and skills

Math/Grammar
Our core in these areas has been Rod and Staff texts for the past handful of years, and we're not making any changes there. I do go back and forth using Ray's Arithmetic and the original 1836 version of McGuffey Readers for supplement and quiz work though. Dollar Homeschool has a good price for the entire eclectic education series' (Rays, McGuffey, Harvey's, Thalheimer's and Norton's) all contained in CD form.
We always find bits and pieces online to pad out our lessons and supply extra work or just fun work, such as here
In addition to this, we have spelling daily, and the middles do a lesson in Apples daily.
We will be reading thru Poems Every Child Should Know, 1/week plus illustrating it for our notebooks. This will work into copywork as well.



History
This will be our spine this year, our main reading to lead our Middle Ages study and lapbooking season. Our core texts will be An Island Story, 2 chapters/week on Mondays and Wednesdays, A Child's History of England, 1 chapter/week on Tuesdays, and Story of the World v2, 1 chapter/week on Thursdays.
Our lapbook and notebooking resources have come from all over the Internet. Great sites like HomeschoolShare and Dynamic2Moms filled my lapbook binder, I've been bookmarking all manner of Medieval Times websites, information on castles, knights, and more. I'm sure we won't use all of them, but I'm all about the over-kill :-)

Geography
We'll do as we usually do and map our the locations and such thru our reading. With a spine taking us thru The British Empire of old as they really grew their roots, we will have plenty to do. Our study starts with the Vikings so we will hit the gate running with plenty of adventures in mapping.

Science/Nature Study
We will be using a 2 week unit study approach this year to the animal kingdom at large. Everything from worms, butterflies, wasps, spiders, snakes, bears, turtles, ocean life, and exotic rain forest creatures. Our unit on birds will most likely stretch out to at least 4 weeks, as will the ocean life. Padded out, this should last us all season (36-40 weeks).
This has since changed in the plans. We really enjoyed using God's Marvelous Works (Rod & Staff) last year, so we are going ahead with God's Marvelous Works book 2 this year. There are 4 units for the year, covering 30 lessons. We will study thru Algae and Fungi, Mammals, Sponges, Mollusks, Sea Worms and Jellies, and Amphibians. We will take 1 week to study each lesson, making notebook.lapbook pages and so forth. The unit of Mammals will most likely pad us out an extra 6-8 weeks to complete the entire year.

We will continue along with reading lessons using AlphaPhonics, Word Mastery and 100 Easy Lessons. Here are the great worksheets for the lessons in 100 Easy Lessons, from Donna Young (also a great site for just about every single thing you can think of for planning and organizing your school year!)

We will work on handicrafts and other projects that tie into our time frame, such as stained glass 'windows' and maybe a chain mail project.

And now, the book list. It's definitely not all-inclusive, but I have browsed around, and these suit our interests nicely. I am using as many free, online or downloadable texts as I can find, but we will purchase a few books (used) to add to our library here. For our own library, I try to locate inexpensive hardcover volumes to keep.

Henty has a great assortment for us, including:
In Freedom's Cause
Winning His Spurs
St. George for England
A Knight of the White Cross
The Dragon and the Raven
The Boy Knight
At Agincourt
Wulf the Saxon
Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
H.E. Marshall books free online, Baldwin Project has so many good titles to read online
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Howard Pyle
Otto of the Silver Hand, Howard Pyle
Stories of King Arthur's Knights as Told to the Children, Mary MacGregor
King Arthur and His Knights, Maude L. Radford
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain
Viking Tales, Jennie Hall
Viking Adventures, Clyde Robert Bulla
The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights, Sir James Knowles
Legends of the Middle Ages, Hèlène Adeline Guerber
Sir George and the Dragon
Harald and the Stag
Miss Frizzle's Medieval Adventures
Castle, Robert Macaulay
Robin Hood
Knights of the Round Table
The Usborne Book of Castles
The Door in the Wall
The Kitchen Knight
50 Hands-on Activities for Knights and Castles
Days of Knights and Damsels activity guide
In the Days of William the Conqueror
When Knights were Bold
King Arthur and His Knights
The Knights of the Silver Shield


Other Resources we may utilize:
Storm The Castle has a great list of projects we will definitely be putting into the works here during the year! There are catapults, shields and masks, swords if you're interested, diorama projects and so much more. Thank you Eddie for the heads-up in the comments! We would have missed this great addition! edited addition 8/3
History.com site for The Middle Ages
A Book in Time, Middle Ages
A Book in Time, World History reading list
Chronicles of The Earth blog  Story of the World and lapbook resources Story of the World V2 Resources
Busy Bee Kids Crafts
Middle Ages Games and Activities
Mr Donn's Middle Ages links
Webtech Middle Ages
Sacred Heart of Jesus Academy has a nice collection of book ideas for Middle Ages
Learning Adventures Curriculum, Collection of info pages
Kickbutt Crazy Lapbooks page for Medieval Times
Mattman's Arthurian Resources
Paula's Archives Literature to Supplement History
History for Kids, Middle Ages Projects
AtoZ Kids Stuff pages
Castle craft project, younger levels
Britain Express Medieval History
England in the Middle Ages 
The Middle Ages, Chivalry, and Knighthood
Classical Homeschooling's History on the Internet list
Viking Network Ireland, The Vikings
a great school page on The Middle Ages
Lady of Shallot poem, Alfred Lord Tennyson
King Arthur and the Knights of The Round Table information
Interactives The Middle Ages
Travel to The Days of Old  These pages are from Beacon Learning, there are a lot of lessons to glean from here
FunSchooling Unit Study Archives, Kings, Queens, and Castles
Listmania! list of Kid's Books for Middle Ages and all ages books on Middle Ages

On another note, just for great reading, Classic Reader Online has a lot of good reading in various genres free, online. There is also FullBooks.com, but I haven't checked that one out much yet.


Many titles are available free online thru resources like Project Gutenburg, Baldwin Project, archive.org, and other free text sites, with some available as audio reads as well. Where I could, we utilized these free resources and downloaded them for reading via iBooks or Kindle. Definitely don't go by just my suggestions here for book locations...Google them for yourself and find the source that suits your own needs best.

Ambitious, I know. We will never read everything, but with so many great titles available free online, how could I refuse to load them up just in case we need more free reading fun? I love having too many options than coming up short. There are far more titles and resources available out there than I've listed here. So many great bloggers have been thru the Middle Ages and have lots of notes, ideas, and projects to share. If anyone finds any blog  notes out there, please do share here in the comments!


- Blessings from Abundant Blessings Homestead!

PP: By The Shores of Silver Lake

Memory Work:
Romans 8:31-39
50 States has a nice site, including this chart on Statehood order.

Activities and Studies:
Read a biography on Fanny Crosby  online here, and here, and here
learn some causes of various diseases
learn about germs and infections and how they work online here and here
Meningistis, Measles, Scarlet Fever, Immunizations, Tuberculosis
Your own State history
Dissection and study of a cow eye online here, here and YouTube
study the anatomy of an eye
steam engines, trains, history of the railroad
study the purposes of United States territories/states
read about Helen Keller, Loius Braille and the Braille system
bird migration
discuss the uses and structures of root cellars in food preservation/storage
study the Timber Culture Act
cottonwood trees,


Word List:
satchels
greenhorn
literary terms: setting, plot, characters, conflict, climax
slough

PP: On The Banks of Plum Creek

According to the Primer, we will begin to dig a bit deeper into nature with things like classifications: plant, animal, fungi, protista, and monera.

Kingdoms are divided into a classification’s pattern from the largest to the smallest categories. As an example, the animal kingdom categories are: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species.  Each plant or animal is specifically identified by its genus and species name. This is called binomial nomenclature.

Whew….ok, I was never a big science major I’m afraid.  I know alot more than I realize I know, but still… Here are some varied websites you might find useful in planning through this book

Our favorite find: Sorting and Classifying Organisms for Kids

Kingdom to Subphylum

Experimental Biosciences introductory pages

The (Modern) Six Kingdom Classification  this would be a decent chart to print for a notebook or lapbook

Kids Biology site using an example of classifying candy. Another good page in the Kids Biology site

We will also be putting out Considering God’s Creation workbook and teacher guide to use.

 

Also touched on for some extra study, the grasshopper plagues between 1873-1877. 

We will work on our study using our favorite must-have homeschooling resource for science, The Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock.  You can download it free here, but I definitely suggest getting a copy of your own.

Also, you might want to get the Outdoor Series over at the Handbook of Nature Study Blog.  Barb has an incredible collection of goodies shared, some free, some in her great ebook form.

 

Our Memory Work for this book is Psalm 51.

Other activities include:

reading a biography of Noah Webster

making a 9-patch quilt

a study of trees

water safety

tobacco, use, cancers related to tobacco

learning about Bees, Moths, Butterflies, Mammals in general, leeches, beavers, leeches and their old time medical uses,

preserving fruit by dehydration

learning about water purification

a study of Plains for geography

the history and origin of American Folk Songs

crafting window stars

 

Some of our study words include:

conduction, convection, radiation, butte, mesa, plateau, plain, preservation, idleness (both a dictionary definition, as well as using our Strong’s Concordance, and For Instruction in Righteousness books), knoll, snipe, belfry, cravat and more.  We generally add any word that is new to the children to their on-going list.

hello? still homeschooling?

I know....of course you all still are.  And we are, too.  I'm just not blogging much.  sigh like I need a school blog, a kitchen blog and a family blog.  I can't keep up with any of them.  I simply don't get online via computer much at all these days.  I grab a few downloads when Homeschool Freebie of The Day has something we're interested in (which is at least twice a week).  Sadly, most of my sharing experiences lately are via the Blackberry.  I like my Blackberry, don't get me wrong, but I'm too easily side-tracked by these things. however, if I could hook up my printer to that cell we'd have it made!

So, where are we school-wise? Well, I'm re-evaluating again.  I need to stop doing this.  In my defense, I have been settled in for quite some time now with our curriculum, so maybe I was just due for a re-work.  I used to do it quite often.  I am actually looking at the current flow of our schooling and trying to figure out what will work better for the children.  We are not 'on target' via public schools.....however I do not give a purple fig about that in all honesty.  I have family members who stress that fact quite a bit, but if I was that concerned, we'd be part of the public school drone assembly.

Still, there is a part of me that lets that nag in the back of my mind to a certain extent.  It's really like comparing apples to oranges as far as I'm concerned.  Ahh, I'm sure most homeschoolers have folks who linger over traditional grade levels and the like.

So, here's what my mind has been pondering of late.  I love Paths of Exploration....even though we are lingering far too long on the Pilgrim colonies and not really gaining anything from it.  I am a book junkie and bought their full package.  In all honesty, we never follow step-by-step any curriculum we use.  We stay very free-form and gravitate along the interest levels, which often trails us away from the original plan.  We have done so with Paths as well.  We are working the majority of it as lapbooks and/or notebooking components. We have pulled lapbook units in from other resources, and it's been alot of fun..  I will probably order the next level, Paths of Settlement, and again go with the full deal.  That said, the way we school here, I do not see that the specified reading resources are set in stone.  We could have read any books on Columbus, Jamestown, The Mayflower, etc. and garnered just as much with this curriculum.  But that's because we deviate alot.

I have used Christian Light Education a lot, as well as their counterpart, Alpha Omega, and I am looking at going back to the CLE workbooks for a season to see what the lay of our land is here.  I have a full set of Rod and Staff curriculum from 3rd grade up when hardcover "textbooks' begin and that seems to be posing an issue right now.  We have a couple of competitive children and book sharing isn't playing out well, no matter how I work it.  I am thinking that we could go with the individual unit workbooks for math and English for this year and then see where we stand.  More than likely, I have one child who will by-pass the other 2 in no time and be ahead in grade level and our problem will work itself out to a great extent.  We have one who really thrives more with one-on-one schooling, and individual workbooks will help ME with that as well.

I also have one who is ready to finish her 'formal' book work and graduate from that onto more extra-curricular study lines, pretty much on the targeted time frame she has always expected to.  Good grief, what will we do with her now???  And we are pretty much finished with the oldest at home currently, as she has decided she is not interested in continuing beyond the point she has completed, and yes, it's ok with us but I had really hoped for a bit more :(

So, there are my update rambles....and here are some links shared with me this week I thought I'd pass along:
Top 50 Best Homeschool Blogs

Some great links shared by an online friend this past week:

AAA Math...free math by grade level 
AAA Spelling...free spelling by grade level

And lastly, Daniel Boone, here we come...after the New Year takes off, that is!
Famous Missourians
Daniel Boone TV and Movies
Biography...and a great online book to read
Daniel Boone Homestead
from Netflix....Time Machine: Boone and Crockett, The Hunter Heroes
Daniel Boone unit goodies
YWAM Publishing...a great book on Boone (we have the entire Heroes of History set)
Daniel Boone at EasyFunSchool
a CurrClick goodie
Homeschooling The Middle Years blogshare 
Lesson Pathways page