history – james 1st and japan

I meant, 14 posts ago, to celebrate the fact that this blog has 2500 published posts . i forgot so i will celebrate now 2514 posts!!!

having moved on from that bit of celebration I will now have a quickety quick run through the week. hmm, where had we got to Monday turned out to be a bit of a disaster. both girls did lots of at home bookwork stuff, and then SB was supposed to have a root canal. [2 years ago she slipped and completely tombstoned her front upper 2 adult teeth to the pulp. since then she has had them built up at the dentists, when fully grown she will have veneers. unfortunately this leads them prone to infection. last year she had one root canal, and this year she needs the other] . DH forgot so she didn’t, and this will also put back the traintracks further . anyway, she was relatively happy and had ballet and gym as normal. I got back from work a bit early so BB was happy as she didn’t have to go and watch SB gym. DH had also sorted ‘scratch‘ onto BB’s desktop, and she was having a complete strop moment of creative frustration over the process I have asked DH to work it out and then give her a few lessons till she gets started! He put an animation prog on SB’s netbook, so she was having fun with that making her glasses move all over her face

tues SB had an animation session with the local home ed group for 11+ – it is nice to have some older kids events, and she really enjoyed it. BB was v jealous [increasing sb enjoyment] but instead went shopping with DH to spend book vouchers from last year. SHe really really loves shopping! so both had a great day out, and swimming for them both in the eve. Jax and co arrived as well in the eve, so they rampaged around with Big and Small and I zonked on sofa [having had appaling sleep night before and humongous work day] poor hostess that I am. it is lovely that they travel so far to come though, as it gives the older girls some time for face to face rather than internet contact.

weds was history day. Jax and Zoe have already blogged this, so since this is the second time i have written this blog post [the first time my computer did something wobblish and it was lost] I am slightly tempted just to say read theirs!

SO we are starting on our Story of the World book 3, and we covered today James 1st ascension, religious beliefs, gunpowder plot, tirade against smoking. we also covered the settling of virginia and commencement of planting tobacco leading to expansion of the slave trade. a quick mention of nzinga of ngola as well in the morning. The craft based activities were done with listening to the relevant chapter or extra resources and then discussing.

for the gunpowder plot we made peg doll guys and then burnt them :evilgrin:

we discussed king james anti smoking treatise, and how posters are peppier and so made some. I loved the imagery taken from his treatise, and also the attempt to make the language appear mock-tudor. they all spent quite a while on this, allowing me to read a fair bit, and katy discourse on the ascension to the throne.

meanwhile some where baking thanksgiving foods with zoe – succotash and cornbread and parkin. they were all delish. the succotash perhaps a bit too buttery for everyday [tho this was a celebration] and the cornbread surprisingly sweet. all eaten up

katy had a variety of kids volunteering to be stuvyesant with his peg leg [an adapted sink plunger!] and jax talked about the triangular slavery trade. some of the children were still doing their antismoking posters, and others drew slave ship pictures. the older children were asked to write something about what had caught their interest that morning in the history scrapbooks. SB opted for the gunpowder plot. The plan is to stick in pictures/artwork/ maps and info prints and photos into these scrapbooks this year as part of the visual record they keep.

we then had a late lunch, played with the tiny ones, oohed and ahed over the tortoise had a cup of tea to revive and then katy set up a sumo ring. this was excellent fun we learnt about the traditions, the correct ritual and reason, and then various kids had a go. obviously BB was desperate! we adults laughed in the sun

gradually all the families left, and we were left with Jax’s big, who is having a 3 day sleepover . the elder 2 girls did some watercolour painting, SOA did some daubing painting before she left, and BB and SB had judo [separately] . on BB return, she and Big watched Jurassic park 2 and laughed lots it was nice seeing them snuggle on the sofa.

I think I might finish this blog post here A great day with friends, and sunshine! after all, SOA had granted me a wish with her magic wand the night before, and i had wished for a sunshiney day

resources for the day
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