My Favourite Subject

The Tudors!  I might be slightly happy about this unit as I'm a little crazy about this era.  The children were over the moon when I changed the display board to a Tudor one - I think my history enthusiasm may have rubbed off :)

We've been working steadily through a great book 'Our Island Story' by H.E.Marshall and are now a couple of chapters away from The Wars of the Roses. The book aside, unit-wise we have now covered:

The Romans

The Anglo-Saxons

The Danes (Vikings)

The Normans

 Medieval

The Tudors

The Stuarts

The Georgians

The Victorians

Edwardian 

WW1

WW2

Our work is on our timeline and for me it is highly satisfactory for the children to have learnt their history in context, with how each era related to the next.  Future units will focus on the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages but for now, studying and absorbing 2000 years worth of British history has been a huge and exciting venture for us all.

Here's some of our Tudor work so far:

The Boy got us started with this brilliant copy of Henry VII's portrait :)

My little history buff, Ballet Girl, has raced through her work, answering questions she has gained through her own study.  This makes it all so worth while!

 Of course one must write with a feather quill at all times during Tudor lessons :)

We spent some time discussing the Renaissance and the brilliance of Leonardo da Vinci.

Painting the Mona Lisa

A Mona Lisa puzzle for my kinaesthetic Panda Girl

My mini Henry VIII.

Colouring Henry VIII's warships and making Tudor portraits.

The Boy also fitted in some of his beloved cooking

60th Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation

The Coronation

The two youngest did a mini project on the 60th Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation.

The Boy did some cute work with the poem:

Pussycat, pussycat where have you been?

I've been to London to visit the Queen.

Pussycat, pussycat what did you there?

I frightened a little mouse under her chair.

 He role-played with some cuddlies...

And then made a paper mouse.

Panda Girl did some science work with him.  These two are good friends :)

I Love These Kiddies!

Bungee jumping teddies and a snapping crocodile below... 

A Birthday Week

Half term.  

In the garden.

My darling Ballet Girl turned 11.  She's a fabulous cook, historian and dancer amongst other things and we love her so much.  Happy Birthday Poppet.  xxx

 She spent her half term week on no less than 6 sleepovers, including a Birthday one at ours with a few friends.  (Midnight-5am was sum-total of sleep they achieved I do believe,,,)

We partied it up in the sunshine...

...and only realised we'd forgotten the cake after everybody went home.  Oops.

Monkey Girl cared for an injured butterfly.

And we caught tadpoles at our local forest centre.

We hung out with uncles, aunties and cousins in St. Albans

Chores - bless my Boy

...and spent time with best friends.

After paying a sad visit to Grandad's grave, who died unexpectedly six weeks ago, we cheered ourselves a little with an Italian/Maltese lunch.

...which then inspired hours of cafe role-playing in the garden.

The Boy spent two crazy happy hours on the zip-wire at a local English Heritage site

Stone painting

...and we rounded off our half term break with a Sunday evening pic-nic.

Maths

Fun with Maths

We enjoyed our maths unit, more than we all expected, I think!  We do maths 3 times per week but this put the fun back in it for us.  It was all very hands on and the children enjoyed choosing which avenue they pursued.  We'll do this again! :)