As you all know, February is my least favourite time of home school, on account of a severe lack of energy. When I saw King John was coming up on the horizon, hibernation for its duration seemed like the only sensible solution. Of course humans don’t, as a rule, tend towards hibernation, and I figured it might be taken as a sign of laziness on my behalf, so I resisted the urge and determined to make something of this yawn inducing subject.
I’m so pleased I made the effort! We have just had one of the best two weeks of our home school ever!! And we were learning about King John and the Magna Charta! I did at one point question whether some sort of mania had gripped us all, but on reflection I think we had good resources, lots of ideas to try out with a mother who was certain of one thing – she was not, under any circumstances, going to do any school planning. Too tired. So she didn’t.
As it turned out, my children didn’t need planning. I shared my ideas, which (for whatever weird reason) appealed to their sense of adventure and off they went, planning everything for me. I felt a bit redundant to be honest, but I went with the flow, lacking the impetus to do much else. I found, to my delight, the treasure to be found when children are engaged, fairly independent and completely in the moment. I haven’t laughed so much for what seems like too long. My children crack me up, and without knowing it, completely healed me of my February blues. The fun that can be had with five children, a king’s crown and a hapless mother, knows no bounds!
It all started sensibly, as most studies do with me reading the books out loud. I’m including a brief review of one of the books we worked through tomorrow because I think it is such a fabulous resource. Here are the books we looked through:
My ideas for a King John study included a leadership study on him; a law study on the Magna Charta; and a comparison study between autocratic ruling (John’s time) and democratic ruling (nowadays) as well as a brief look at the Model Parliament called by Edward I. Next year we will be learning about parliament so this would foreshadow that study. I also wanted the children to write their own Magna Charta, coming up with one solely for the purpose of the angelicscalliwag clan.
I’ll be sharing next week about the surprising fun we had with this traditionally rather serious subject.