This year I asked the children to choose one area of the historical period which would interest them enough to dig deeper on their own. The task was to put together a project on their chosen area and present it at our final medieval presentations in April (ish) time. They needed to come up with…
Category: History – Middle Ages
Islamic Scientist Study: Alhazan
Source Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham (965 - 1040 AD) was an Arab scientist, polymath, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher. His speciality was optics and he showed accurately how the eye worked and used the focal point of magnification to make the fore-runner of the pin hole camera, called the camera obscura, proving his theory…
Art Study – Medieval Illumination
Our artist study this term will be the Limbourg Brothers. They are famous for their 'Book of Hours' which is full of some of the most beautiful illuminations. Before we studied their work in depth, I had decided we would look at medieval illuminations as an art form first to become familiar with them as…
Creating an Illuminated Letter
This week we begun our study into the illuminated letter. This is as a prelude to our artist study on the Limbourg brothers. I shall be doing a full post on Friday, but today we made our own illuminated letters and had loads of fun. Yesterday I had prepared them for this activity by reading through and letting…
The Geography of Ancient China {and Xia Dynasty}
In this post about the geography of ancient China, we explore the lay of the land, as described by Marco Polo, using our paper mache map: Please note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases made from links on this website. Marco Polo and his route to Cathay Today, in The Travels of Marco…
The Travels of Marco Polo {Homeschool Lesson}
In this latest homeschool history lesson, we will be focusing on the travels of Marco Polo from Venice in Europe to Ormus in Persia. The children dressed up and ready to go on their trip across Asia as Marco Polo Discover all the fun things you can include in a Marco Polo Adventure Box Venice…
Marco Polo and the Silk Road
This week was all about preparing for our trip across the silk road. Yes, I know, week three and we haven't even left Venice yet! I did say it was taking us a little longer than anticipated! This week we will be learning about Marco Polo and the Silk Road. Marco Polo and the Silk…
Marco Polo and the Mongolians
This week we have taken an unplanned detour. We neglected to cover the Mongolians during our ancient history studies and I wondered where it might naturally fit in. Marco Polo and the Mongolians is the answer! As we are reading Polo's memoirs the 'Tartars' are the one people we have no knowledge of. They played such…
Who is Marco Polo? {Medieval Explorer}
It seems Marco Polo will be taking us longer than first thought (ahem, how very unusual for us!). His travels are a much larger, not to mention interesting, subject than I first thought. Fortunately, the freedom of home-school allows us to chop and change as often as we like, so I'm just going with it!…
Castles Homeschool Lesson
We are in the middle of a Medieval Unit Study right now. This post will be going hand in hand with my knights' post of last week. When I was planning our castles homeschool lesson, I knew this was an opportunity to a practical, more field trip based learning. So I asked Gary if he…
Medieval Re-enactment
As we are currently studying all things medieval, I thought I'd include some photos of a medieval re-enactment we attending when the children were much younger. We love going to re-enactments (and a medieval re-enactment is surely the best!) and I think secretly the children would quite like to get involved in one themselves (lots of…
Maths at the Manor
Last week I mentioned our foray into living maths using the Domesday survey as our basis for learning about percentages. We used our handy-dandy papier-mache map (again-this is one of the best investments in time we have made!). Paper Mache Map The children built up our very own Manor, complete with a Keep: Our Manor Statistics…
Marco Polo Adventure Box
Yesterday I shared the resources I'm using for the Ancient China part of our adventure box. The resources shown here will make up the Marco Polo Adventure Box. We will be studying these in tandem, so the resources here may not look like much but together with the Ancient China resources, there's loads! Marco Polo…
Importance of Picture Books for Learning Great Literature
Studying great literature has to be one of my most favourite times in home school. I think because I design our own studies, it gives us lots of freedoms that following a curriculum of any type would remove. I am able to keep it simple, complex or anywhere in between. We don't have to ascribe…
Giotto Artist Study for Homeschoolers
Continuing with our Medieval Unit Study, today I am going to share our Giotto homeschool artist study. Giotto was apprenticed to Cimabue, yet he overtook his master in many ways, excelling in portraying a more natural and normal human form. He was a fore-runner, if you like, away from the Byzantine art which influenced Cimabue. …