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Getting the kids ready and excited
Labeling the World Map Tristan had to write out the continents and label them (using blue gummy stick tape on laminated map), Karsh had to do the Oceans, Reichen had to do the Rivers that we have studied in History covering Europe, India, China and the Nile in Egypt.French Door with artist and their work- took a lot of time but really worth it...we used the cards to play games with before gluing them up. Packaging paper and cardstock and 3M spray glue that we all use in lapbooks.French Door of the different countries we went to...color coded and then the names beneath them in the color they are. This took way longer to do than I thought but in the end it was so worth it...Even Bronwyn will point to the countries and say their name. This map allowed a real visual image for the kids to see where we were going and even while there allowed them to know where in Europe they were. Steve took a picture of this map before we left (this picture) and printed it out on our computer and we taped it to the seat in front of Tristan in the van. Worth its weight in gold!!! I woke up one morning to the added pink airplane with the family on board flying into our map...Karsh and Tristan did that!!!! The downside of this map was our layover in the Netherlands...Tristan was totally absorbed in the trip starting in Belgium...so that we were landing in the Netherlands first and not there on the last day at the Van Gogh museum like I had said was really causing some frustration with him.Making castles...I had to chuckle...because there we were in Geneva with friends for the night and at their house their son had done a castle much like my children had done just weeks before...so precious!!!! Endless entertainment!!!!!We spent a lot of time on Michelangelo pre trip...though we don't go to church and I have never considered myself deeply religious we all were fascinated with the Sistine Chapel and spent a good amount of time studying the different stories captured there. Now, post trip, on the third French door we have a large sized poster of the Chapel while we finish off our studies. You know your children are smarter than you are when you watch a film about Michelangelo and Pope Julius (who hired him to paint the ceiling" and you say out loud, "why is the Pope in the battle scene?" and your son says, "mom remember Pope Julius was the warrior Pope?"...."ummm yeah honey I remember that...." ughhhh....If I can find a good picture there is another GREAT thing we did to help the children and it not only helps them in our trip but just History in general...it is a timeline that we have totally sacrificed a wall in our home for. I bought my timeline from the VERY talented most motivating mama, women and teacher I have ever had the joy to get to know Amy Pak!!!! This mama is so full of ideas and so open to sharing them that she inspires me more than words can say. Anyway I used two things actually from Amy to help prepare for the trip (and really for schooling whether we did the trip or not) and those are "Artist Pack" and her amazing Time Line figures. As we study something we then print off her time line figures and I assign Tristan, Karsh and Reichen to color the images that I feel they most absorbed, bonded with or who I thought of while looking at it. From her HUNDREDS of characters I only strictly put up ones that we have studied. This packet has been worth its weight in gold to us. Since it's in a prominent place in our home we relate to it often...an excellent visual...we know that Michelangelo, Pope Julius, Leonardo Da Vinci, the Mayflower and Black Beard are all down in the bottom corner of our time line and thus have a visual that they were all happening "about" the same time. I never had such a visual...and the coloring of them reinforces it all. The coloring of them makes it OUR art...and we are all so proud of our timeline and LOVE Amy and her products and willingness to share every ounce of information she has. She is one in a million!!!Timeline http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com/HTTA/timeline.htm
Her Artist Pack gave me the idea of my doing my wall with the artist and art...it motivated me to seize the opportunity. By using our timeline the children have learned not to mix up the time frames of the Renaissance with the Impressionist...or even the more recent Picasso...by using the timeline they know that Picasso actually died in my lifetime http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com/HTTA/AP/Artists.htm
I don't have a great picture of our timeline but if you look behind my kiddos doing art in the laundry baskets (yes this is common here at our house)...the timeline is in the background and has since been added to a lot, I will try to get a better picture up. I wanted to add I did the background with package paper and used gold paint as my line (I wanted it to blend with my decor and not be on white paper) also I put the differnt figures on differnt colored paper based on the continent that the image placed in. Sure some have more than one continent associated with them and in that case we did a star, or moon or something to be added to the cardstock. Since I feared that I would never beable to match a specific orange in the years to come I immediatly used different colored oranges to represent Asia and therefore it wouldn't look bad as the years go by. Blue is Europe, Black is Africa, Orange is Asia...Gray is North America (with little presence as we are studying Ancients first)...Green will be South America.
So I needed one more picture for the collage...and I LOVE the picture of the kids at the airport looking out at the planes in their Superman PJs, people were loading and I didn't want to stand in line and we just waited there as they all loaded knowing we had assigned seats and there was no reason not to.