For the past five weeks the children have been beavering away at their chosen projects on the topic of pirates. I have not helped them at all. For once I have backed off entirely. I didn't check on their work, I didn't make sure they were on the right path, I left them completely to…
Category: History – Tudors & Stuarts: Explorers
Renaissance: Tudor Explorers Unit Study
Week 1 - Introduction and Resources Week 2 - Making a Paper Mache Map Week 3 - The Urge to Explore Week 4 - Preparing for the Journey Week 5 - Ships and Sea Monsters Week 6 - Navigation part 1 - How to make a Chip Log to calculate Speed Week 7 - Navigation…
Renaissance Explorers: Explorer Study – Columbus
This is my penultimate post about our explorer study. Last term, I read aloud the following book: It is unusual for me to go with just one book to study anything, but I am falling in love with this series. They seem to be placed well for the tween ages when the children need more than…
Explorers Age: Conducting a Blanket Trade
One of the main reason for exploring the world was to trade goods with the natives of the land discovered. But how could they do this if they were not able to verbally communicate with each other? Blanket, or silent trade, was a method whereby two different language speaking groups were able to trade without…
Renaissance Explorers: Making and using a Quadrant
During the renaissance, if a sailor lost sight of land he needed to have a method available to him which would help him determine his direction. The quadrant was an instrument which allowed him to work out which latitude he was at: Source We had already covered some navigational methods used by the explorers during…
Renaissance Explorers: Making and Using a Magnetic Compass
Compass Rose It was during the Explorer's Age that cartographers began using a compass rose to display orientation with regards to the map on which it was placed: A compass rose displays the cardinal directions of North, South, East and West on a map or nautical chart. We had already come across the compass rose…
Renaissance Explorers – How to make a Chip Log to Estimate Ship Speed
A Chip Log was a crude and early form of speedometer and the only means the Tudor sailors had of telling the approximate speed they were travelling at: Source During ancient times, sailors measured ship speed by something called 'Heaving the Log' Heaving the Log consisted of throwing a wood log into the water and…
Renaissance: Tudor Explorers – Ships and Sea Monsters
Resources The children read the information which came with Homeschooling in the Woods. This included ship anatomy, sea faring sayings and their meanings, ship and sailor vocabulary as well as a sea chantey Blow the Man Down: I also gave them the following books I bought in a library sale: Ship Anatomy Using the ship…
Map Work: Poles and Parallels
Resources We read a small amount of information from our Homeschool in the Woods curriculum but got most of our information from our core book - Charting the World by Richard Panchyk: Vocabulary to Learn Most of these words the older children had been exposed to before and were therefore familiar with. The goal of…
Tudors and Stuarts: Explorers – Preparing for the journey
We spent this weeks session learning about preparing for a long and arduous journey of exploration. We read from the Great Atlas of Exploration and the information from Homeschool in the Woods about the life of an explorer. We learnt about provisions and made some of our own. Provisions for the journey We wrote a…
Tudors and Stuarts: Explorers – The Urge to Explore
Lesson one with Homeschooling in the Woods was looking at what drew people to explore. There was some information which came with the curriculum, but I also had the children have a look at this book: Using some of the information and cut outs, as well as some photocopied maps and scrap papers, the children…
Tudors and Stuarts: Explorers – Making a Paper Mache Map of the World
Last week the children focused their attentions on the reasons for exploring. I used blank print out maps from Home School in the Woods and asked the children to fill in the continents and oceans, which they did easily. As I am trying to include the little ones more, I asked A6 to colour in…
Tudors & Stuarts: Explorers – Introduction and Resources
Hear ye, hear ye... I made a scroll to read out to the children during our first lesson, calling them to become Tudor Explorers extraordinaire. I was hoping to hook their enthusiasm early on in our study and I wasn't disappointed. A6 and I made the scroll by printing out the words in old English…