Having now read all of book one of The Travels of Marco Polo, we find ourselves in Cathay, or China as it is now known. Polo described the mountain ranges he trekked along with his experiences in the deserts. We had already covered mountains and deserts in our previous studies of Turkey (mountains) and Egypt (desert). I asked…
Category: History – Middle Ages
Marco Polo: Venice to Ormus
So this week we were off; dressed and prepared for our journey ahead: Our first leg of the journey to Cathay would take us from Venice in Europe to Ormus, in Persia. We had read up to chapter 18 in Marco Polo's Travels a few weeks before, taking us to the vicinity of Ormus (Hormuz). One story Rusticello relates is…
Marco Polo and the Silk Road
This week was all about preparing for our trip across the silk road. Yes, I know, week three and we haven't even left Venice yet! I did say it was taking us a little longer than anticipated! We are still ploughing our way through 'Marco Polo's Travels'. It is getting easier and easier to read,…
Marco Polo and the Mongolians
Picture Credit This week we have taken an unplanned detour. We neglected to cover the Mongolians during our ancient history studies and I wondered where it might naturally fit in. Here, is the answer! As we are reading Polo's memoirs the 'Tartars' are the one people we have no knowledge of, and given they played such…
Marco Polo: The Beginnings of a Great Explorer
It seems Marco Polo will be taking us longer than first thought (ahem, how very unusual for us!). His travels are a much larger, not to mention interesting, subject than I first thought. Fortunately, the freedom of home-school allows us to chop and change as often as we like, so I'm just going with it!…
Robin Hood
Usually during a fun week we revisit something we have studied previously and so I am able to step beck and effectively have a week off, which is rather nice. To all intents and purposes the children HAVE learnt about Robin Hood prior to this week. Voracious readers, they made light work of the books I…
Castles
When I was planning our castle study, I knew this was an opportunity to a practical, more field trip based learning. So I asked Gary if he would mind taking some time off for us to go and visit a couple of castles and spend enough time in them and exploring them that the children…
Looking Back: Middle Ages Reenactments
Usually on a Wednesday I write about something we've studied previously. My goal is to have fully caught up and have a record of all our history by the end of this year (probably before). This post was due to be on Mycenae, but I was going through some old photos and found a heap…
Knights
It took us a week to study knights. Not long, no. The children, however, have been reading so many great books, playing loads of dressing up that there seemed little point wasting time teaching them that which they already knew. So I didn't! After a little questioning to find any glaring gaps, I thought we…
Maths at the Manor
Last week I mentioned our foray into living maths using the Domesday survey as our basis for learning about percentages. We used our handy-dandy papier-mache map (again-this is one of the best investments in time we have made!). The children built up our very own Manor, complete with a Keep: I showed them what an average Manor…
Domesday Book
I'm all for fun school work. I know that sometimes in life one simply has to knuckle down and do the work regardless of the fun factor or lack there of, but as Mary Poppins once said 'a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down' (I'm currently breaking off into song - you should be glad…
Easter Adventure Box: Marco Polo and Ancient China-Part 2
Yesterday I shared the resources I'm using for the Ancient China part of our adventure box. The other half of the box will be focused on Marco Polo. I intend to read aloud his own autobiographical book about his travels: We are using 'Marco Polo- History's Great Adventurer' I LOVE these books. We have a similar…
Importance of Picture Books for Learning Great Literature
Studying great literature has to be one of my most favourite times in home school. I think because I design our own studies, it gives us lots of freedoms that following a curriculum of any type would remove. I am able to keep it simple, complex or anywhere in between. We don't have to ascribe…
Giotto Artist Study for Homeschoolers
Continuing with our Medieval Unit Study, today I am going to share our Giotto homeschool artist study. Giotto was apprenticed to Cimabue, yet he overtook his master in many ways, excelling in portraying a more natural and normal human form. He was a fore-runner, if you like, away from the Byzantine art which influenced Cimabue. …
Thomas’ battle and victory over writing
This week I was so proud of T11 that I almost cried. He wrote his first completely independent 5 paragraph essay using this tool . I asked T11 if he would mind me relating some of his story with regards to his difficulty with writing, and if I could share his essay. T11 would be my most…