Knights and Ladies

This past week we read The Duchess Bakes a Cake.  It was a relatively simple book geared toward younger kids, but it had so much we could learn from it. The bored Duchess decides to bake a cake one day, and cheerfully rejecting any the offer of help from the cook, she pours in untold amounts of yeast and everything else she finds in the kitchen. The cake rises so high she rides up to the sky trying to beat it down. The king orders it to be attacked with bows and arrows and the like to get her down as she shouts instructions down at her family on what to cancel. It's pretty funny. Finally, when her youngest daughter cries in hunger, they all get the idea to eat the cake down.

 This was the kids' first official introduction to the Medieval Period. They had a castle and set of knights along with other random action figures, so we set up the whole hierarchy. The king sits high in his castle, the large figures including Vader are Barons and Lords. Then come the knights and peasants.

They also looked at this chart and filled out their own. They understood that your lot in life was determined by what class you were born into and learned about the roles these people filled. We also filled out a cast of characters since they are currently rehearsing for a play and this book could easily be made into a short one.

 They did a quick book review. We also did work on alliterations, synonyms, rhyming, and foreshadowing since all of this was easy to find in the story. The girls especially loved coming up with alliterations in the car when I'd assign them a letter.

 

We read a knight's code of honor and they each came up with a Stokes Code. I love Chloe's - "Be nice to each other and keep clean." I guess that does some up a lot of things. 

 They both looked through a large book describing all sorts of Medieval occupations and chose several to write about.

We looked through several representative menus of the period and the girls made up their own menu based on the types of things that would have been eaten at a feast.We did not venture to Medieval Times restaurant since it's quite expensive and they announced they wouldn't care for the food anyway. But we do pass it when we go into Dallas, so this was the first time they officially noticed it and commented on the building.

 

We looked at old style lettering and Hannah tried her name in all capitals. She also came up with her own designs. We also listened to plainchant on our car rides. Most college music students tend to groan at the music of this time period because it seems simple to our ears now. It's actually quite complex and I think it's nice to listen to! Thankfully the kids liked it too! 

 Austria was not mentioned in the story, but one the daughters all had German/Austrian names. We've already touched on Germany, so we learned some fun facts about Austria, glued a flag to our map collection, watched a couple of short videos.

 

The book only used the colors green, red, and white. We talked about complimentary colors and started with primary colors on the color wheel. They then mixed secondary colors and made the complimentary connection. Finally, they mixed the remaining colors on their own. I promise the colors are more accurate in real life than they are in the photo : )

 We looked at a few art examples from the Middle Ages and noted the use of color, how the people were depicted and the fact they were playing chess. : ) They noticed a likeness to the icons we have in the house. Looking back, I should have used the word two-dimensional. Oh well. They wrote their impressions next to each painting.

 Finally, we couldn't read a book about cake without baking a cake! We found out the role of each ingredient and understood that baking is chemistry. Since Hannah was about to have a birthday sleepover, we baked a chocolate cake and they seemed to have better understanding of why we put in each ingredient. 

 The girls were invited to an interesting birthday party at a local store called Denton Scrap. A group of retired teachers have several of these throughout the country. It's really a great place- all recyclable materials (they even hand washed all the party plates) and for pennies, you can get all sorts of fun things. The group activity was to make a diorama out of 5 things they found in the store. Unfortunately, Chloe accidentally took an item from their "boutique" up front which was all art items people were selling. The teacher told her "We don't make art out of other people's art." Of course Chloe didn't know that was someone else's art and had no idea what a boutique was (and that someone else's art was just a plastic palm tree glued to a wine cork, so I didn't think it was a big problem). : ) All was well and she picked a pine cone instead.

 Her finished diorama.

 Hannah's was a dinosaur jungle scene of sorts.

 The girls all played Bingo and won $1 tags to spend in the store. Hannah was the only one to win two, and she gave her extra to the birthday girl. I was proud of her for thinking so generously!

 

 Some pretty days have finally come our way, so we headed to the park right when school let out so they could meet some new friends. They did right away- 2 girls and a boy all the same ages.

 As for me, I was able to play Assistant Horn for a movie concert. I have this picture because a couple of my students were there and were surprised to see me on stage, so they sent me a picture from the balcony. : )

This week we're "visiting" the seashore with Gramma's Walk.