Rebuilding Stonehenge

My oldest dd has never been very fond of hands-on projects no matter how many different ways I presented them to her.  (It only took me 2 years of homeschooling to figure that out.)  So when she began high school level KONOS and started to do her own lesson planning, I questioned whether she would choose a "well balanced diet" so to speak. Would she choose all reading activities?  Would she choose all history and not do enough art to earn an art credit for high school?  Would I have to force her to write reports?  Her preferred method of learning is to read, read, read.  But she does not always retain, retain, retain.  So I like learning through various methods.

Well we're only four weeks in so I can't say how the rest of the year will pan out but so far it has been going superbly.  She has been scheduling a good solid amount of work to keep herself busy and learning and she even seems to be enjoying it.  I think she likes having the control. DD is the kind of kid who likes everything organized and planned out where she can see it and understand it.  She likes knowing what is expected of her and what she should be doing when and all that sort of thing.  KWIM?  So this is really working out.

Last week she was studying Stonehenge and in addition to writing a short biography on John Aubrey she also chose to build a small model of Stonehenge as it is believed to have been in it's glory days.  I had never heard of Aubrey but as DD has explained to me, John Aubrey was a 17th century scholar who discovered 56 pits encircling Stonehenge just within the surrounding ditch.  They are now called Aubrey Holes in his honor.  He was a cautious observer, looking for clues rather than treasure and his work influenced the research of others after him.

DD created her replica using simple wooden blocks.  It was a valuable hands-on experience that further cemented her study of Stonehenge.  Here is an "aerial view" of her model.  She included the station stones and the slaughter stones but this photo just shows her ring of sarcen stones and everything built inside of the ring.  Due to limited space in our living room she was not able to put in the Aubrey Holes or the outer ditch and bank but she was careful to explain where they would have been during her demonstration of the model.  I suppose she would have had to have dug holes in my carpet and I wouldn't have been too keen on that anyway.