View from our house.  We are blessed.

The Boy is loving this unit.  A castle in the classroom was the next obvious step.

He loved it.

I found this idea for a trebuchet on Pinterest and copied it.  I can't believe 1) I actually managed to make it and 2) how well it works!

Set up for a morning attack.  I heard the Boy exclaim in delight when he went downstairs, followed by "got you!" and "we're gonna get your castle".

Ballet Girl did a fantastic job making one too.

 This was a hit!

After a morning at Nursery followed by Storyclub, the Boy snuggled up in his fort and listened to his story cd.

I spent a good hour with the older two discussing the Feudal System, manor house estates and the 3 stages of becoming a knight, after which they did some lovely worksheets I partly created and partly got from around the internet.  

Today we also studied Mendelssohn and looked at photos and videos of Fingal's Cave, while we listened to his Hebrides Overture.  We have a great picture of Grandad at Fingal's Cave when he went there with Mummy when she was younger.  We had a look at Cossack dancing and Iguasu Falls after Panda Girl came across them both in her geography work.  Ballet Girl and  Monkey Girl progressed with their map-work and all three girls worked on their English (personifications, verbs and spellings respectively).  Monkey Girl spent six hours reading today.  She devours her books.

This morning the kiddlets studied Spring poetry and wrote their own Spring themed poems.  I loved them!; We talked about pitch and vibration, hertz and decibels in their Science - and Monkey Girl experimented with creating sounds with elastic bands, pots, jars and fabrics (tighter = higher, looser, thicker = lower pitch);  Ballet Girl did some word problems making fractions into percentages;  Panda Girl drew a sweet life-cycle of a broad bean;  The Boy had a friend over to play this afternoon and also did some cute Mother's Day craft at his pre-school.  And we all learnt about Henry I, youngest son of William the Conqueror and his terrible grief upon hearing of the drowning of his son and heir, Prince William.

And this afternoon????  After a LONG winter full of snow and ice and below freezing temperatures, the crocuses poked through the grass today and the sky was blue, blue, blue.  The children celebrated by spending the entire afternoon outside - and I eventually dragged the oldest two back in at 8pm, from a pitch-black game of jousting or some such Medieval lark :)

Hello Spring!!!!!

Today we looked at Heraldry and its origins and then how it spread from knights to families and estates, to peasants and merchants, to towns and cities, each wanting to have its own poignant identity.  The children found the symbolic meanings of the animals and colours fascinating and created their own designs for their own Coat of Arms.

Monkey Girl made this awesome castle rat :)

 The Boy made a King...

...and showed how well he is getting on with his mazes.

They spent over an hour in the garden riding their bicycles (aka horses) and pretending they were in a jousting tournament (n.b. I thought perhaps that the 'no literal lancing of other people' rule should apply here and thus enforced it  before the tournament began :)

Panda Girl made a jester...

...and a gorgeous shield with her designed Coat of Arms on it.

And we also made our own jousting tournament field

Monkey Girl made a super Coat of Arms with symbolic designs she found relevant to her...

 ...here she is looking brave with her knight visor she created last week while the rest of us 'rested' with a tummy bug.

A few worksheets to remember the facts

Ballet Girl opted for a simple Coat of Arms...

...and also worked hard on similes, metaphors and personifications

 Ballet Girl designed this :)  ...

... and drew this.

Panda Girl made a Medieval Headdress

...and she also drew this castle and painted it with water-colour.

Monkey Girl painted this one :)

 The Boy requested a cooking session and found this recipe in his book...

...we had no jam so we used marmalade instead.  Scrumtious. Ballet Girl helped him with the whole thing.

Sorting for The Boy

A new way to use the bead board.

 I am overjoyed that my Panda Girl has discovered the joys of reading.  It 'clicks' in their own good time.  

I thought we could start collecting and painting jars to put candles in for a Summer evening.  Here is our first batch.  

Monkey Girl helped The Boy make a knight mobile. :)

Our new unit:  The Normans and the Feudal System / and the Middle Ages

I'm noticing a bigger gap now between the two eldest and the younger two now, resulting in having to have lots more ideas every day to keep them all interested in whichever theme we are studying.  Sometimes I gear it more to the older two or vice versa.  We are moving steadily on with our history, recently studying The Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest.  It seemed apt, therefore to have a castle theme for the littlies to enjoy, while the older two learnt more details of castle life, castle architecture, defense and attack means and all that goes with it.  Ballet Girl is especially interested in the use of falcons, merlins and buzzards in the Middle Ages.  She dressed as a huntress this morning and spent a good while reading up on the subject.

Here's a selection of how we got the ball rolling:

Fairytale castle sensory box for my Kinaesthetic Panda Girl

Castle story words for Panda Girl to use to create her own story.

 Dragons and a castle for The Boy

The Boy's favourite musical castle

Castle cards

The Boy is learning to do worksheets.  He especially enjoys matching and tracing over dots.

Some of our castle books and activity books.  The older two have started lap-books: watch this space :)

Our half term week

We booked a session at our favourite forest centre and learnt about fossils and rocks...

...and made pre-historic creatures out of clay :)

Uncle T showed The Boy how to use his new saw....

...and made a cross :)

 And we spent the week catching up with friends.