Renaissance and Reformation - Unit Celebration

We had a very special unit celebration a couple weeks ago.... special because my parents and both my sisters were able to attend, as well as dear friends who are like family! As our unit celebrations go, it was a bit lame in the costume department (it really was), but again, we DID it (isn't that the main point?), and it was a great excuse to have some wonderful fellowship! ;-)

This was for Tapestry Year 2, Unit 2, the renaissance, reformation, and Elizabethan England. First up we were visited by Christopher Columbus, who told us about being the first explorer to sail across the Atlantic and return to tell about it! After he forged the way many others followed and even surpassed him, but he has the distinction of being the one to prove it could be done, as well as the distinction of "discovering" America!


Then we had the privilege of hearing from Leonardo da Vinci himself! He told us about some of his inventions, and a couple of his paintings which later became famous. He remained curious about the world and how things worked up until his death, and tinkered with so many different ideas. He is perhaps the true archetype of a "renaissance man."


Next it was William Tyndale's turn. Tyndale is responsible for translating the Bible into English so the common people of England could read God's Word for themselves. For this he was mercilessly hunted down and eventually executed, but as he began to burn at the stake he cried out, "Open the King of England's eyes! Open the King of England's eyes!" And God answered his plea ~ shortly after his death King Henry VIII (of six wives' fame) placed a Bible in every English speaking church! What an incredible testimony of faithfulness and courage this man had.


We then heard from a young William Shakespeare, who told us about his life in Stratford-upon-Avon and his move to London when he was in his early 20's. We learned about his playwriting, his involvement with The Globe theatre, and the fact that he also acted in many of his plays! (unusual for the time) He was perhaps Queen Elizabeth's favorite playwright, and she often attended his plays.


Last but not least we once again heard from the reporter for the Christian Historical News, as she reported on the life and times of Queen Elizabeth. She gave a thorough and excellent report on this long reigning and beloved queen!


As per usual, we displayed some of the many books we used during this past unit:


We read some really fun books for literature during this unit, and added to them with other books from the library. Such a rich period of world history!


We also displayed the model of da Vinci's flying machine, which we had made earlier.


Then we snacked on foods that would have been common in Queen Elizabeth's day: freshly baked bread with honey butter, oranges, and dates. Many vegetables were considered poisonous in those days, but they did eat a variety of fruit.


Later we sang around the piano, accompanied by the guitar. Did you know that Queen Elizabeth herself was quite musical?


Feasting and merriment was had by all, the old, the medium, and the young!











Such a blessing to share the richness of our history studies with our beloved family and friends!

Our Week In Review

For extra credit in her Spanish class, our daughter made reprochetas for dinner one night. These are two corn tortillas with special cheese in the middle, fried on both sides and topped with chopped tomatoes and onions. This dish is originally from Honduras, and they were really good! Since she fried them one at a time, it took our daughter a looooong time to make enough for the whole family! She got a taste of what it's like to spend a good chunk of time in the kitchen! ;-)



You all are going to get sick of me saying how much I enjoy using our schoolroom, but I DO!!! So, so, so, so much!!! Here is Little Man listening to a story on tape, this time at his special "listening station." I have had this antique school desk for years, and it finally has a home. Close to the tape player and the tub full of stories on tape. LOVE being able to be more organized!


Our daily practice of book time together in the family room. The big boys are taking a break from reading their own books to help Little Man find some items in his "The Great History Search" book.


Technically this was our week off history, as we are between units, but we used it to dig a little deeper into Elizabethan England before moving on to the time of the colonists next week. Our lower grammar boys and I spent a lot of time reading about William Shakespeare, and talking about some of his plays. We even listened to an abridged version of "Macbeth" on CD. All of the children enjoyed this book, William Shakespeare and The Globe, and after we read it son C made a lapbook, writing down what he had learned.



We also made Elizabethan masks, the kind that would have been worn to masquerade balls during the time of Queen Elizabeth. We will be using these in our unit 2 celebration coming up in a few weeks. More on how to make the masks in another post!



Tonight we are finally having our Unit 1 celebration (Middle Ages). It was delayed for a variety of reasons, but tonight's the night! Check back tomorrow for pictures!

Our Week In Review

It was SUCH a delight to do school in our new school room this week! I am one happy, happy, happy, HAPPY, HAPPY homeschool mama. We schooled for nine years in our kitchen, and I know many families do not have the option of a dedicated school room, so I am extremely grateful to now have a place and a space that only has to be devoted to school and not other functions as well. I finally have a space that "fits" the way I like to teach. I am so very thankful!

In Bible we have been learning about the attributes of God for the last few weeks. I vividly remember being taught about the attributes of God when I was in middle school Sunday school. I was blown away back then, and I was blown away now! What an awesome, matchless, completely unique, powerful, and amazing God we serve. How can we have any other response to who God is than worship? I am so grateful for the privilege of showing my children, from Scripture, who God is. Once we had covered the attributes individually, the four older children all used their Bibles to look up various verses and match the verses with an attribute. Such a joy to see our children all searching God's Word together!




Here is Little Man's "cave" under the stairs. He has been enjoying it all week!


And here is a shot of daughter G also sitting in the new school room. She has an appointment with an eye Dr coming up, but in the meantime I got her a cheap pair of reading glasses, as she was constantly borrowing mine!


We spent this past week learning about Elizabethan England. Yes, we started our school year learning about the fall of Rome at about 400 A.D., and we are already to the late 1600's! So much happened between 1400 and 1700. I am constantly astounded as I continue learning history for myself. In recent weeks we have studied the Reformation and the counter Reformation in some detail, as well as learned about the noble lines of European monarchs, and King Henry VIII's split with the Catholic Church. Son C and Little Man colored these maps showing what parts of Europe were Catholic, what parts were Protestant, what parts were the Church of England, and what parts were specifically Lutheran. We had a good conversation about it as they colored.



One of Little Man's activities this week was finding hidden objects on this page from a history picture book (which I can actually find and get to now that the school room is completed!!)

We read many, many good books. Here are some of them:


Our absolute favorite was this one, called The Queen's Progress. It's an alphabet book that chronicles Queen Elizabeth's habit of an annual "progress" through the English country every summer, through informative text and absolutely gorgeous pictures. Even our high schooler loved it!

Our Week In Review

We continued our studies of the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration this week. We looked at lots and lots of art, and also read about many different explorers and the new routes or landforms they discovered. What an incredible time that must have been! Fear of the unknown began to be replaced by an overwhelming motivation to know what lay "beyond" ~ beyond the sea, and also beyond the known science of the time. It is truly amazing to contemplate all that God allowed man to learn/discover/invent/accomplish during that time period. Our boys have been drawing caravels and their own clever inventions all week!

What was different about this week:

Our two oldest children entered their first writing contest! We mailed off their essays early in the week, and will find out the results sometime in mid December. There is prize money for the top four essays in each of three age categories, as determined by their panel of judges. The prize money was great motivation! But aside from the possibility of winning money, I think it is a great experience, and I am glad for this learning opportunity. It turned out that daughter G and son G were in the same age bracket, so they were competing against each other! ;-)

Something else new this week was that son C began keyboarding! He is slowly learning how to type and how to place his hands correctly. He is highly motivated to begin typing the papers he is writing in writing class, rather than writing the final draft in cursive by hand, so he was super excited to start this new daily activity.





What worked well this week:

We had such a wonderful lesson one day that combined what we are learning in history with what we are learning in Bible. Our amazing history curriculum, Tapestry of Grace, has such comprehensive teacher's notes for each week. They give excellent background information on all the major themes and people covered each week, as well as how the trends of the time line up with Scripture. I especially appreciate how TOG looks at history through the lens of a biblical worldview, and since we are learning about worldviews in our Bible class, I was excited to do this lesson, following the teacher's notes in my history binder.


All of our children were present for this lesson, though the 9 and 6 year old were busy coloring a picture of an explorer's ship during our discussion. First of all we defined the term "humanism", which was prevalent as a movement during the renaissance. This is not exactly the secular humanism that we have today, but similar in some ways. We looked up the verses that you see on the whiteboard, and talked about the Romans 1 view of man and the Psalm 8 view of man. Which is the correct view of man, if viewed through the lens of Truth (Truth being God's Word)? The three older children all copied these notes into their history binder.


Which view of man was characterized by the Southern (Italian) Renaissance?

In two weeks we will be learning about the Northern Renaissance, and will compare and contrast how the Renaissance in the northern countries differed from the Renaissance that took place in Italy.

Great, great stuff, and such a great discussion! So helpful in teaching us discernment. One of the things I am thankful for during this Thanksgiving season is Tapestry of Grace!

Leonardo da Vinci's Flying Machine - Finished!

Little Man, with help from his big sister, put the rope on our model of Leonardo's flying machine. Once that was done, it was finished!


Knotting so carefully.... look at that concentration!


Pulling on the little model man's arms and legs makes the wings flap down.....


and up!

Fun to make, and intriguing to think of all that Leonardo might have thought about.

Our Week In Review

We had a great week of school last week! We left the Middle Ages and moved on to the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Age of Exploration. I have been preparing for this unit in particular for quite some time, because the Reformation is such an important time period for us as believers, and this is the only time our daughter will go through this unit at the high school level. I feel a tremendous responsibility to cover this material well.

As a "hook" to reel in the children's interest, I put this Leonardo da Vinci treasure box on the school table, and it was waiting for the children on Monday morning. I have had this for literally years, waiting for the time when we'd go through Year 2 at a time that my children were old enough to do the activities themselves, and this is that time!


They immediately began putting together a small model of Leonardo's flying machine, based on his sketches.




Everyone did a part of it. Very cool to see it coming together! We talked about why it probably wouldn't have worked (too heavy to get off the ground), and what could be done to improve on Leonardo's design.


As many movements do, the Renaissance began slowly and quietly about one hundred years before Leonardo's birth. We learned about Petrarch, the father of humanism, who is credited by many as the one whose ideas sparked the Renaissance. He was a writer and poet who emphasized human potential and human achievement. We talked about this from a biblical perspective. More on that later. In the field of painting, Giotto is considered the first truly "renaissance" artist. We looked at a variety of his work in different art books.

This is a great little book we checked out from the library!


Leonardo studied mathematical concepts extensively, particularly proportion and ratio, and applied what he learned to his art. He also illustrated at least one mathematician's book; among his illustrations were these polyhedra. Sons G and L copied the shapes using small marshmallows and toothpicks. They had a lot of fun building these!



They finished with an octahedron (8 sided figure), an icosahedron (20 sided figure) and a rhombicuboctahedron (26 sided figure). See if you can say that fast three times!



What worked well this week:

A few years ago I bought lots of scholastic paperback book/cassette tape sets at a garage sale for cheap. Now that we finally have a place for this (yay!), Little Man began to listen to one story a day. He has loved this!


His time with his older brother C is continuing to work really well, also. Every day they look forward to doing an activity together. Some of the activities we had this week were: dot to dot markers,


a variety of lace ups,


and some homemade file folder games.