Castle Building

Continuing the obedience unit we moved on to kings and queens specifically of the Middle Ages.  During our first week we focused on how castles were built, why they were used and what the many different aspects of the castle were created for.  Although the children read quite a few books on the subject, my favorite was Castle by David Macaulay along with the DVD by the same name.


At co-op we built a play castle out of cardboard boxes.  We used a refrigerator box, a stove box and a dresser box for the main rooms, two cylindrical rollers from a nearby factory that produces huge rolls of sticky paper and a smaller box for the turret details.


Once the boxes were assembled with cone roofs on the towers and doorways cut out we moved the entire castle into my garage just in time for the rain to start.  This is where we had the kids paint the castle gray.  Since the gray paint would not be dry before the kids had to leave I promised to paint the black block lines onto it during the week so they could play inside at the next co-op.  And thank goodness hubby was around later in the week to help with that because I never would have had it done otherwise.

Their completed castle has three rooms, two towers, a working drawbridge affixed with chains and a moat which is thankfully free of alligators. The best part is that the kids can play inside of this creation of their own each week before and after co-op.

Boot Camp Co-op

We culminate each week's study with a day of co-op on Friday.  To complete our week on the military we let the kids dress up in some sort of uniform.  DD chose navy blue and white to honor her uncle who is retired Air Force and DS chose to honor his Dad who was in the army years ago.  We even made some little "medals" during the week out of ribbon, a bedazzler and and some hot glue.  So they each had three of these pinned to their uniforms along with their rank pinned to their sleeve.  All the co-op kids came dressed for boot camp with assorted canteens and weapons.

My wonderful husband led co-op this week so we had an especially fun time.  He started in the house with a power point and some instruction on what happens during basic training.  He went over all the insignia worn and the various ranks.  He showed them how to salute, who to salute and when to salute, when they should wear their head cover and when not to, how to stand at attention and more.  This lasted about an hour and the kids stayed engaged from start to finish.  I was amazed!

We then moved outside for some practice marching.  This was really fun because all the moms got to play too.  We were taught how to turn and pivot and march together.  Fortunately we live on a little dirt road so we could march up and down the length of it without interruption.  We also got to shout a marching ditty of my husband's making because the ones he used to sing in the army had profanity.  You know the kind..."I don't know but I've been told!"  and then dh's words, "New England weather is mighty cold!"  He ended it with something about our toes falling off in the night, quite silly so we loved it all the more.

One of the moms brought MRE's for lunch and all the kids had to try each item.  That was an adventure of it's own.  Some of the courses were better than they expected and the one part DH and I remember liking best turned out to be disgusting!

Finally to complete the day we all went back outside to run through an obstacle course.  This time DH was supposed to yell in their faces like a drill sergeant but he just couldn't do it.  He yelled but it all sounded more like shouts of encouragement to me. :)

Military Week

Learning about the U.S. Armed Forces

Today my youngest colored a picture of the Union soldiers raising a balloon into the air in order to see where to best direct their cannon fire during the Civil War.  My son colored a picture of an American fighter plane during the time of WWII held almost 100 years later.  While coloring I asked them to discuss the advancement of military equipment our country, and the world had seen during the 80 years between the Civil War and World War II.  Even I was amazed at how much had changed in so little time.  I knew the information but never really thought about it before.

We followed this up by learning the various ranks and insignia of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.  We "took" the Oath of Enlistment then I assigned all of us rank and we made patches for our sleeves.  We colored them onto cardstock, laminated each one, cut it out and pinned to our shirts.  For the remainder of the afternoon we addressed each other according to rank and title.  

Once our badges were made I drew a clock labeled with military time and we talked about that for a while while I quizzed them on it.  

The afternoon was made complete when I "let" them play a mock battle with their little green army men.

Obedience - Authority and Bible

This was our first week back to KONOS co-op.  All the kids were thrilled to be back together and I was too!  We are studying the unit on obedience in Volume I this fall beginning with identification of our authority figures.  Here's what we did at co-op today:

• Begin with prayer and pledge of allegiance.
• Discuss the obedience of Abraham compared to the disobedience of Adam and Eve.  Who was wiser?  Why? (Page 82 Activity E)  Color pictures of Adam and Eve and Abraham and Isaac while discussing.  Also use this time to discuss proper obedience, who we should obey and how they did practicing obedience this week at home.
• Students present reports on obedience (page 83 Activity H) including why they should obey, how and what they need to improve on.  Reports should express a personal testimony.
• Discuss community leaders such as policemen, firemen, librarians and pastors that must be obeyed and make badges of authority.  (Page 83 Activity G)
• Discuss authorities through history.  Explain the differences and similarities between various types of government: monarchy, totalitarian state, socialist state, communist state, republic and democracy.  (Page 83 Activity F)
• Write the names of government leaders on slips of paper and have group prayer each child praying in turn for the name on their slip of paper.  Children should take home their slip so they can continue to pray for their government leader on a daily basis.  (Page 83 Activity N)
• Bible sword drills.  Say a verse and have kids compete to see how fast they can find it in the Bible.  (Page 86 Activity D) We gave each child a pen with the books of the Bible written inside when they had found a verse just for fun and to give them encouragement to learn the books of the Bible in order.

We have co-op earlier in the day now so we broke for lunch in the middle which worked perfectly today since there was so much discussion.  Next week we are moving on to the military portion of the unit before we do kings and queens the following weeks.

Announcing a New Home For The Hands On Carnival

Hi Everyone!
As you can see, I haven't been blogging much lately. I felt that my lack of attention to the blog world was doing the carnival a disservice.  Because the carnival has had regular entries each month, even without my attention, it seemed to be a waste to just shut it down.  Fortunately there's another blogger out there who loves hands on school as much as I do and wants to keep the carnival going!!!

Soooo, without further ado, I'd like to invite you to visit the new home of The Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival!





Please join me in giving Shannon a hearty welcome.  She is going to do an awesome job getting the best hands on activities out to you lovely bloggers.  In fact she has hosted the carnival in the past so she is already familiar with it.  The Hands On carnival was hosted at Mountaineer Country most recently in March.  It would be great if this next issue of the carnival were packed with your great ideas!  So please hop on over to the blog carnival to submit your entry!  I know Shannon will be encouraged and of course it is that time of year to get going on school again!

The Carnival is Up

Hey everyone, there is a wonderful new edition of the Hands On Blog Carnival up at Harmony Art Mom!

Enjoy!

Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival ~ June 2011

Yes, I know, I'm super late with this edition.  I'm so sorry.  But given the size of this edition, I'm thinking I'm not the only one who is tired of school and happy to be enjoying summer vacation.  For those of you who are still plugging away and perhaps need a bit of inspiration, here are a few welcome blog articles to keep you going.

Z-Dad presentsWhere the Mountain Meets the Moon posted at Bookie Woogie.

I'm going to go away from the norm for a bit here and include this lovely article from Kerry at Creek and Mesa Web Journal.  This is not an article about a hands on "project" that Kerry has done with her kids, rather it is an article about living and I thought it seemed very "hands-on" so I'm including it here for your enjoyment and encouragement: Growing Wild.

Ann presents Outdoor Hour Challenge Spring Series #4: Wildflowers-Dandelions and Playing the Harp and Piano as Part of Homeschooling posted at Harvest Moon by Hand.

Zoie looks like she's having fun in her post Kid-Dyed Silk Scarves posted at TouchstoneZ.

Susannah presentsa much easier way to make paper in her post Making Paper the Quick and Easy Way posted at The Five of Us.

Barb at Harmony Art Mom will be hosting our next carnival on July 11th.  Hope to see you there!