Around the World in 80 Days: Day Two

On the second day of our summer adventure, we read two more chapters, continued learning lots and ended the day with a Byron poetry reading tea party.

Chapter 3: Phileas Fog makes a wager that is likely to cost him dear

Phileas Fogg believes he can circumnavigate his way around the world, and is willing to put his money where his mouth is by betting half his considerable fortune on it happening.

Chapter 4: Phileas Fogg Shocks His New Butler

Fogg and Passepartoute, with a carpet bag containing a minimal change of clothes and twenty thousand pounds in notes, begin their journey around the world, leaving first class to Paris.

During day two the children learnt lots, creating the next couple of pages for their scrap book:

They focused their learning on the following:

British Bank Notes

Phileas Fogg takes twenty thousand pounds (the equivalent of 1.5 million pounds today) in notes in a carpet bag (!), and bets the rest of his fortune (another £20000) on his ability to circumnavigate the world in 80 days.  I found some photos of five pound notes which were around in the 1800’s, and found they were the currency of a particular areas bank, not a uniform note from the Bank of England.  These were added to our journal along with a quick study of the bank of England’s history:

The Poulain Chocolate Company 

When Verne first wrote Around the World it was serialised by publisher Hetzel and many people at the time believed this to be an event which was actually happening in real time.  The idea that a man named Phileas Fogg was in deed attempting to circumnavigate the world in 80 days was propounded by The Poulain Chocolate Company using scenes from Foggs travels as wrappers for their chocolate.  I found a collection of wrappers and the children created a collage with them:

The Continental Railway and Charing-cross Station

Any place in London is a place I will automatically get a map for.  Each time the children look at a map of London they will become more and more familiar with the area, which I am hoping will be helpful to them for their journey up to London.  I also found some pictures of the area back in the 1800’s, and trains leaving and arriving there:

Whist

Of course whist was played again.  This has been such a hit in our house!

 Around the World in 80 Days Board Game

I was blessed to find an inexpensive secondhand copy of the above board game, and the children, the little ones in particular, have thoroughly enjoyed playing it each day:

Around the Dictionary in 80 Words

Here are six more words that the children have needed to find out the meaning of and use in a sentence:

Byron Poetry Reading Tea Party

Yesterday, the children had learnt all about Byron and I had asked them to check out some of his poetry and choose their favourite poem to read out this afternoon.

We used my great Granny’s china and served tea, orange and chocolate cake and chocolate cake.  Yummy!

Charlotte begged to go first and chose a couple of dramatic poems called ‘None of Beauties Daughters’ and ‘When we Two Parted’:

Lillie was taking the whole thing very seriously, sitting back straight, sipping her tea, and clapping in a very lady-like fashion:

It was then her turn to read.  She chose ‘There is Pleasure in the Pathless Woods’ and read with somewhat less alacrity than her sister:

But was quite happy to clap herself genteelly afterwards:

Her sister on the other hand was slumped in the corner of the sofa, one leg resting on the other, clapping raucously!  Really, they could not be so different!

Thomas finished off our little poetry reading by choosing the shortest poem he could find  🙂   Only, a couple of lines in we all realised it was the same poem that Lillie had just read out!

Teens are seriously so much fun!

I will be posting all about day three of our summer adventure tomorrow.