A beautiful Week in Cornwall

We had a smashing week in Cornwall. We stayed in a beautiful Methodist chapel and spent all our days at the beach.

Monkey Girl celebrated her Birthday on our first day there!

Birthday Girl/Monkey Girl is a HUGE Famous Five fan and so we celebrated her day on the beach, in a cove, with humbugs and ginger beer for snack, and cucumber sandwiches for pic-nic. Perfect!

A perfect week with my wonderful family. 

Another School Year Done

That's it! We're done! Another year under our belts - huzzah!

Our thematic units this year:

Leonardo da Vinci

Autumn

Ancient Greece

Advent

The 20th Century

The European Union

Exploration

Gardening

Geology

Aztec, Maya and Inca Empires

Ballet Girl gained Basic First Aid, Power Boat Level 1, Basic Camp Craft, Basic Seamanship and Basic Navigation, and progressed to pointe shoes in Ballet.

Monkey Girl gained Competent Crew and Basic First Aid, achieved her Commodore's Pennant, won Junior Sea Cadet of the Year and Best Attendant, and will be getting her first pointe shoes this summer.

The girls have been in their first rowing and power boat regattas, on sea cadet courses around the country, danced 45 dances between them over a weekend of dance shows with their dance school, and have done some smashing community work with and for their Sea Cadet unit. Panda Girl went to Edinburgh to see the pandas. Ballet Girl had an after hours tour of the Harry Potter studios, spent a week at the National Navy Training Centre, HMS Raleigh, on a Naval Acquaint Course, and visited HMS St. Albans while it was docked in London. They've had dance exams, and field trips to museums and English heritage sites, We've holidayed at Center Parcs and Cornwall. Monkey Girl has undoubtedly read all the books in the library. The Boy has joined a football team, caught up with his sisters on their trampoline badges, and starts rugby in September. I'm seven months into a six year history degree! We've successfully planted sweet peas, violas, wildflower seeds, cornflowers, carrots, lettuce, spinach and our super giant pumpkins are growing as we speak! The children have cooked and baked and created and read and discovered and invented and played, and I'm super proud of them all. I love you kiddies. x

The Incas - Thematic Unit

Moving on from the Aztecs and Maya thematic units, we spent this week developing a basic understanding of the Incan Empire.

We started with a geographical lapbook of the span of the Empire and the weather extremes they would have experienced.

We had a very silly morning making Machu Picchu out of cheese.

I chose cheese (!) to show the children that in Inca architecture individual blocks were carved to fit perfectly on top of others, rather than using any form of cement.

Apparently no one is ever eating cheese again.

We made quipus:

quipu

ˈkiːpuː,ˈkwɪ-/

noun

1. an ancient Inca device for recording information, consisting of variously coloured threads knotted in different ways.

Sapa Inca, leader of the Incas and thought to be the son of the sun. Coya Inca, daughter of the moon and also his wife and sister. In this way theirs sons, future emperors, would have pure blood from the gods.

We had a few versions of these ;)

He visited his people on a litter. But don't look him in the eye or you face imminent death! 

 The gods and goddesses of the Incas.

Viracocha - the creator

Inti - god of the sun and Mama Quilla - the Moon goddess

Illapa - god of thunder and lightning

K'uychi - the rainbow god

Pacha Mama - goddess of the Earth

Mama Cocha - goddess of the sea

Measuring how far a llama can spit - 15 feet!

Learning some fun llama facts:

They stick their tongue out at other llamas if they're cross

They sit down and won't move if they've been overloaded

They rank themselves socially by how well they behave. Best behaved llama is at the top.

 Inca play. The best way to learn.

The children watched a documentary on the Inca trail to Machu Picchu and made an adjective poster to describe everything they saw and felt. The older two used Thesauruses for this.

Lake Titicaca