Medieval Castle Siege Game

Finished castle with "King Toucan"

I got this idea from someone else's blog, but unfortunately I can't remember where I saw it!  We had lots of fun with this one.

First, we printed out castle templates so that the kids could assemble their own castle.  I printed out the black and white ones, and the kids colored them creatively.  This was a simple activity, that required a few printouts, some colored pencils, cardboard (we used old cereal boxes), toilet paper tubes and glue.  The castles did not take long to assemble...maybe an hour to make 3 castles (from start to finish, with most of the time spent coloring.)

Next, the kids placed their castles on a large sheet of butcher paper.  I wish I had had poster board on hand, but I didn't....so the paper had to do.

I read a book about castles to them, pausing at the end of each page so that they could decide if they wanted to "add" anything from the reading to their own castle.  I had to do the writing for the youngest ones.  They made little drawings on the paper to indicate buildings, weapons, and supplies, and then whispered to me what each drawing meant.

I helped them to label their drawings, and then read the next page.  We went back and forth like this, pausing after each page, so they could decide what their castle would need to withstand a siege.

After we were done, I used a printout from this Castle Siege game which prompted them to tell what people would be present in their castle.  Those names were written down (king, blacksmith, peasants, etc.).  They had one last opportunity to mention any supplies, animals, food items, people, buildings, etc. that they needed before the game began.  Once the game started, no one could add anything to their castle.

The Castle Siege game has a bunch of cards that you print and cut out.  Each player draws a card and adds or subtracts points from their total score, based on how well they outfitted their castle.  For example, they add two points if they remembered to include a dungeon, and subtract two points if they forgot.  Once they've gone through all the cards, the game ends and the player with the highest point total wins.

I wanted a chance to play, too, but it didn't seem very fair, because I knew exactly what everyone else had put in their castle, and what the cards called for.  We agreed that I would use our Fairy Tale Castle puzzle, receiving or losing points for whatever the puzzle creators remembered to put into the puzzle.  Let's just say that the Fairy Tale Castle wasn't designed very well for a siege, but it was fun anyway.

This puzzle, by the way, is a remnant from the days when I believed that all boys should have gender-inclusive toys.  No one plays with it in this house now-a-days.  For more on that, please read my post about Boys and Weapons!

This game was fun, and didn't take very long to play.  The longest part of this entire exercise was reading about the castle and getting the boys to label it.  But they absolutely loved doing that part, and they remembered so much more than if we had only read it.  Thinking about what they would need, labeling and listing everything, and then finding out through the game what was missing was very instructive to them, and they won't soon forget this material.

I'm so happy we took the time to do this!  It was well worth it.

Could my child be dyslexic?

 I always knew one of my children was a little different.  At age two, he could quickly complete complicated puzzles that his six year old brother struggled to put together.  His mind just saw the way it had to be!  He was incredibly smart and continually amazed us with his mechanical mind and ingenuity.

When I began teaching him to read, though, he struggled.  He changed b's into d's and 9's into 6's.  More telling, though, was the fact that he couldn't remember little words.  If he was reading "Tim and Tom and Mary and Jan" he would have to sound out the word "and" every single time.  He could not remember it from one second to the next.  I had him informally tested, and he "passed".  We were told he was not dyslexic.  That put my mind at ease for a short while, but not for long.  Signs which could not be explained any other way continued to crop up.

He skipped words or even lines while reading, as if they weren't there.  He read words backwards.  He added letters that weren't there, or deleted ones that were.  He ignored punctuation marks.  Reading and spelling became a horrible chore.  We had him tested again by a trained psychiatrist and found out that he was, indeed, dyslexic.

At first I was stunned.  I had feared this was true.  I had known it somehow, deep down.  Yet the truth still felt like a punch in the gut.  How would this affect him?  What would this mean for his long-term future?  Could we handle this?

Although it did not feel like it at the time, receiving that diagnosis was a blessing.  We could finally begin to understand what we were dealing with and address it in ways that are making a difference.  My patience increased exponentially overnight, as I realized that he really was doing his very best, and as I began to see school through my son's eyes.

I am grateful that I found some excellent programs for him, even before I knew for sure that he was dyslexic.  The psychiatrist was shocked that our son was less than a full grade level behind in his reading and spelling, and he attributed that to the strength of the programs we were using.

Dyslexia is not diagnosed only by a child being behind...it has to do with the discrepancy between the level he is working at when reading and writing versus the level he is able to work at when those components are removed and he is listening and speaking.  There were 8 grade levels of discrepancy between those two points for our son....so although he wasn't very far behind his grade level, he was miles away from living up to his potential academically.

It has been a year since he was diagnosed.  We've kept the good, and improved on the rest and this school year has been our best year by far.  Our son is thriving, and is actually up to grade level now in his reading.  His spelling is coming right along, and he is achieving spelling success every week rather than constant failure.  We are using things like My Audio School to address his core content needs, and Writing with Ease to help him learn how to communicate on paper.

I thought there might be a post in here somewhere, but I can tell already that there is a series here.    I'll look forward to sharing more soon about what we've been doing with him to achieve encouraging results academically as well as a much happier school day for both mom and son.

In the meantime, if any of this rings a bell for you, check out this post on Symptoms of Dyslexia  
on the All About Spelling website.  Perhaps that nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach is a wake-up call.  I didn't want to face the truth, but it has truly set us free.  Now we are working with our son's strengths and helping him learn how to accommodate for his weaknesses.

Another way to narrate...

The Bath house of Mohenjo Daro

Charlotte Mason teaches that a child should tell what he has learned after reading a book. This narration is meant to be done in his own words, rather than in the Classical style's question and answer format. We use both methods in our homeschool.

Sometimes it is hard to get my little boys to narrate to me. The idea is that they would tell about the things that they felt were interesting or important, but sometimes they get self-conscious and don't know where to start or what they should say.

 Enter the Hands-On Narration Activity.

This is a re-creation of the ancient Indus Valley city Mohenjo Daro, within its city walls.  I couldn't tell you at this moment what each lego represented, but he certainly could! And that's the point...

If I ask my boys to "set up a scene" depicting what they learned, they are overjoyed and race off to comply. When they tell me about their scenes, I find out quickly how very well they have been listening. No detail is too minute to share, as they have been careful to incorporate everything they remember into their scene.

Here, they used blocks and plastic dogs and cats to set up a scene from our reading about the Mayans.

They love these opportunities, and I love seeing their creativity and hearing them tell me in detail about what they have learned.

Everyone wants in on the action!

The Multiple Personality Mom

As women, we often experience a wide range of emotions on any given day. To our husbands and children--and even to ourselves--these mood changes can seem like multiple personalities. You may meet some of your "other selves" in this encouraging, allegorical podcast.




This podcast (written last year for The Ultimate Homeschool Expo) is 19 minutes long. To listen, press play in the widget box, or click "visit my call" to download to Mp3.

Homeschool Apple Awards

I feel so blessed to be nominated again this year for the Homeschool Blog Awards.  Thank you!  In honor of the awards we decided to hold our own little awards ceremony today:  The Homeschool Apple Awards.

Four distinctive apples were chosen:  Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Gala and Honey Crisp.  Slices of each were sampled and a vote was taken.  Which apple would win?

Granny Smith and Golden Delicious tied.  Gala and Honey Crisp were eliminated, having garnered only one vote each.  A re-vote was taken.

Golden Delicious won, hands down!  Only Grandma voted for Granny Smith.

"My favorite apple won!!!  Mwaaa haaa haaa haaa haaaa.........."

Yes, this is just a bit of silliness.  But you should try it!  Our lunch conversation was lively and now I know what kind of apples to buy next time at the store!

File Folder Spelling

My nine year old dyslexic son has been making great strides in his spelling.  I like to use hands-on, kinesthetic methods as he works to learn his spelling words.  One of his favorite activities is File Folder Spelling.

He is given a stack of different colored alphabets, a file folder, his spelling list and some thumbnail pictures printed from a clipart program or *Google Images (one per spelling word).

First, he cuts out the letters he needs to spell the first word on the list.  Next, he glues them down.  He then finds the appropriate picture that goes with the spelling word, and he glues the picture down beside the spelled word.  This helps him to visualize both the spelling of the word and its meaning, which is very helpful for him.  Last, he writes the word out in his own hand.

You'll notice that the last word on this list is "the".  Words like these are the most difficult for dyslexics, who think in pictures.  This word no longer gives him trouble in reading or spelling, and I truly think it is because of exercises like this one, which help him to visualize a definition for this little word.  For this file folder, he had a picture of a group of stick people, and he circled one of them to represent "the".

*I always search for images myself.  It is incredible what a benign search of google images can pull up, so you would NEVER want to allow a child to search for images himself, even when your computer is set to "safe search".

Preparing Hearts for Christmas

Do you have a desire to start family devotions? Are you looking for some ways to turn your childrens' hearts toward the Lord during the upcoming holiday season? Please join me for a time of encouragement and practical tips on implementing family worship during this special time of year.

It's not too early to start planning for a meaningful Christmas season. In this podcast I share about what our family does during our Advent season devotions, with some encouragement for you and lots of practical ideas!

If you want to download this talk to Mp3 or burn it to CD, click "visit my call".  That will take you to the site which hosts the call.  To stream this call from your computer, just click the play button in the red widget box.

Latin in the Christian Trivium

Our oldest son is in his 6th year of Latin this year. He began with Prima Latina in 3rd grade, followed by Latina Christiana 1 and 2. These programs were great for a young Latin student, but it was hard to find a good option that would take him to the next level.

Enter Latin in the Christian Trivium. I can’t remember how we found this program, but I am so thankful that we did. It is systematic and thorough, rigorous but not overwhelming.

To read about the strengths of this excellent program, and information about the online class option, please see my review at The Curriculum Choice.

Educational Games Online

My children really enjoy it when I can find a great game online to supplement our history studies. Here are a few we like:



We learned how to play Senet when we studied Ancient Egypt. This online version teaches the rules of this ancient board game and lets you play against the computer.

Hounds and Jackals is another favorite board game from our Ancient Egypt studies. My boys love this game.

Even though we are long done with the Ancients, we come back to Senet and Hounds and Jackals occasionally just for fun.  

Egyptian Tomb is more involved than the previous two games. Kids get clues to solve a mystery by answering questions, doing simple map work, deciphering hieroglyphs and other exercises. There is some teaching about Egyptian gods and beliefs on this site. This site requires some reading ability. It's not too hard as the answers to most questions are provided somewhere on the site. It's a fun way to reinforce what you may already be learning about Ancient Egypt.

Last year when we studied the Mayans we played this online Mayan Ball game. It was also neat to watch this brief video re-enactment of a Mayan Ball game.


Jacobites the 1745 Rebellion begins with a very brief video, and poses the question, "Could you have done a better job if you were the leader of the Jacobites?" As kids read information and learn more about the people involved they are asked to make decisions. Some responses prompt video clips of battle re-enactments. Definitely click the "funky" button to view this in flash. It's much more interactive than the simple site.

Scottish Wars of Independence is an online board game. Kids spin and move around the board. Every square they land on opens up a fact file about this time period. Kids choose the 6 events they feel to be the most important and add them to a list. At the end of the game they find out whether they chose wisely or not.

Vikings in Scotland gives kids opportunities to answer questions to complete game tasks in "Build a longship" and "Build a longhouse". Some answers are provided on video clips (at least in the Flash site) for kids to watch after they answer. The more kids know, the faster their boat/longhouse is built. There is also another game on the site, where kids try and sail their longboat around a map, accomplishing various tasks along the way.

We really enjoy the viking board game Hnefetafl. This site provides English rules partway down the page, or click here to read the rules I wrote out (which may be easier to understand!) To play this game online, click on one of the boards displayed. Each one yields a slightly different variation of the game. Don't forget to click English on the board game page or you'll be playing in Danish.


BBC Schools has lots of games, including some games for Modern Times.

I like Scotland During the Second World War. My 2nd grader has played this and he enjoyed it. Kids pretend to be a spy, gathering information to help them progress through the game.

My kids have not played their WW1 game Trench Warfare yet, but I suspect they will like it. It does require quite a lot of reading, but you are able to choose which weapons you want to fight with and then see a cartoon video of the chosen weapon in action. Then you are briefed as to how well you did and why. This game doesn't teach much, other than the pros and cons of various battle tactics in WW1, but it will probably be a hit with boys.

I've heard great things about the BBC's Dance Mat Typing but my kids have not used this yet, either. Nevertheless, I wanted to try it out. And it's great! Seeing is believing. We will definitely be using this game.

My Audio School subscription give-away

Brenda at The Tie that Binds is holding a contest on her blog right now for a free one-year subscription to My Audio School.  Check it out to see how you can enter for a chance to win!

The Value of Copywork

Copywork is an important part of our school day.  My 2nd grade son is showing real improvement in his handwriting through the regular use of this tried and true method.  He is also starting to feel more comfortable writing sentences on his own.

I have found it to be an excellent method for our dyslexic son, too.  He doesn't have to think about how to spell a word or where a comma goes when he is doing copywork.  He can just carefully follow the model sentence provided.  His understanding of sentence mechanics and his spelling show dramatic improvement since I added copywork to his schedule.  Best of all, it gives him the opportunity to succeed on a language arts activity.  Copywork has not replaced our spelling program, but it gives me an additional opportunity each day to incorporate spelling work.

 

We do grammar lessons immediately following copywork.  First Language Lessons by Susan Wise Bauer is user-friendly and effective without being burdensome to my little guys.  We do a lot of the exercises orally, and incorporate some of the lessons into our copywork time by looking over the copied sentences to locate proper nouns, verbs, and other grammatical elements.  Since our copywork book was also written by Bauer, the two books fit seamlessly together.  One is great, but doing both at the same time is even more effective.   In about 20 minutes a day my boys are getting a grammar lesson, practicing their handwriting and sentence mechanics, and gaining facility with the English language.  Soon we'll finish book one and move from copywork into dictation.  I think the boys will be ready for it.  I can't wait!

To read more specifics about the materials we are using, Susan Wise Bauer's Writing with Ease, read my review on The Curriculum Choice.

Make Your Own Coat of Arms

We really enjoyed the book Make Your Own Coat of Arms by Catherine Daly-Weir.

The boys enjoyed using the enclosed stencil to make their own personal, realistic coat of arms.

Our preschooler thought this was so much fun, though he got as much marker on his arms and on the table as he did on his paper!

The book includes a lot of information about the meaning of various symbols, designs and colors.  Each boy was able to choose something that he felt represented him to personalize his shield.

The stencils enabled everyone to feel pleased with the quality of their work!

Highly Recommended!!

Building Loyalty Between Siblings

How do your children get along? There is hope! In this message, I share hope for the sibling relationship, and practical advice about living according to God's rules for relationships.

Bird Garden wins at State!

Here are our two birding boys, with some of their favorite plush birds. They use these birds to memorize field marks and bird calls.

I just have to share our exciting news! Our boys spent several months installing a Bird Garden in our side-yard. We were thrilled last spring when the project won first place in the Keep Our County Beautiful competition. That was quite an honor.

But we just heard that the county-wide organization submitted our project to the state level, and it won Second Place in the Keep Georgia Beautiful competition! We were shocked.

Thanks for letting me share our joy! You can read more about our Bird Garden project here. You can also find out more about how we got started with youth birding, including some of the techniques that Dawn (from Olive Plants blog) and I used to teach our boys, by reading this article about us on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website.



Here are my boys and Dawn's boys at the Georgia Youth Birding Competition last spring.

Dawn has some excellent posts in her Birding 101 series, including Introduction to Birding, Know your Bird Parts, and Using a Field Guide.

Costumes for the Medieval Feast

It took a bit of doing to pull the costumes for this feast together. But it really wasn't too hard. My boys already had a good bit of what they needed in their costume bin.


Our oldest son has a Scottish William Wallace Claymore sword from Vision Forum that he wanted to wear to the feast. I give him a lot of credit, as he really got into his part. He wore a kilt and spoke in a Scottish accent all night.

Two of the boys needed pants for their knight outfits. I was able to find a pair of footless, gray woolen leggings at Goodwill for one of them, and the other boy wore a pair of gray baseball pants. I cut off all the beltloops and the pocket on the back. It looked a bit rough, but his tunic hung down over the top, so it didn't matter. Their hoods and shirts were things we've collected over the years. If your boys don't have a knight costume, put one on your shopping list this Christmas. These costumes are worn constantly, not only when we are studying the Middle Ages.

Our youngest son dressed as a squire. We had a perfect costume for it but he lost it a day or two before the feast. You know he had to wear it every day for a week, leading up to the feast! So when the time came, we had to grab something on the fly for his squire robe. He wasn't in it long...at the beginning of the feast, he was knighted and did a quick costume change. We pretended that the feast and the jousting tournament were in celebration of his knighting.



I was able to find a dress for myself in the prom section at Goodwill...for $5 I found a perfect Queen dress. The Lord must have put it there just for me. I was so excited when I found it! A long wig that I braided finished the look. The veil I was wearing was just a lace curtain valance that I tied around my pony tail in the back to conceal my own hair.

My husband was the hardest to costume. At 6'4" tall, it's hard enough to find clothes for him anyway! Goodwill to the rescue again. I bought a set of purple twin sized satin sheets that I adapted as a King costume. The flat sheet made a wonderful King's cape for him.



And I found a way to create some makeshift pantaloons by folding the fitted sheet in half lengthwise and wrapping it around his waist. I pinned it in the back like a skirt, with the elastic (fitted part) down near his knees. The loose fabric was then gathered at the knees and pinned again to make a kind of pantaloon. It wasn't ideal because it looked a little skirt-like (I did use extra pins to try and gather it in the middle to minimize this effect)...but it took just 5 minutes and he was a good sport about it. He wore shorts underneath (for comfort and modesty) and I think it fit the bill.

His sword was also from Vision Forum. They have many beautiful swords for sale. Each of our boys receives one as a special gift sometime during their 9th year, to commemorate the fact that he is half way grown.


Yet another use for my wig! I've worn it for Japanese Tea Party, 60s day (unbraided) and now Medieval Feast.


We could not find crowns, though! I went to several stores and no one had them. I'm so glad they didn't! One of the girls from the family who joined us figured out a way to create the crowns from scratch using beads and copper wire. I think they were beautiful, and her creativity was one of my favorite parts of the feast.