Tag Archives: history

Saint George, Dragons, and King Arthur

st.george

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I really liked the story of Saint George and the Dragon!

Such an interesting story to add to our history study and a great way to get ready for the middle ages!

I liked that Hunt for the Devil’s Dragon (AIO Imagination Station Books)
and Saint George and the Dragon
where different versions of the same story.

I like the boys to see that history can be told many different ways and that stories change as they are retold.

We studied dragons with the idea that they might be stories  based on dinosaurs.

If you believe that God created all of creation at the same time and that it was not billions of years ago that dinosaurs existed then it stands to reason that people might have seen some before most were killed or died off.

And if I saw a dinosaur I would probably talk about it a lot and the story would be retold.

Of course I would want the monster I killed to the biggest and meanest, maybe it might grow into something that looks more like fantasy then reality.

I find discussing controversial history with my boys to be the best way to learn.

I always ask, “why do you think that?” when they jump at the easy, popular opinion.

They are quick to realize that they were just spitting out what they had heard and they have nothing to back it up.

Answers in Genesis has an interesting video on their site about what might have happened to the dinosaurs, here.

kingarthur

King Arthur was actually set in Britain before the middle ages were in full swing.

You can listen to what they would have really sounded like during his time, here.

I read about an article about all the fuss about who King Arthur really was and why do we even care.

Should we even learn about him, he probably never even existed, was there a point?

As a mom of boys I love what he stands for.

He is a king that makes little boys want to save the day, do what is right, and treat people fairly.

That seems like a good enough reason to me.

Also, I am a firm believer that stories come from somewhere.

If a story shows up over and over and will not die, maybe that story is based on something that really happened.

Why not debate an interesting story?

Sounds like a good opportunity to get kids interested in history and literature to me!

Ancient China, Gunpowder, and Paper.

china

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We touched on China BC, here.

This time we were learning about the beginning of Gunpowder, Paper, and China’s three Kingdoms in the 1st century AD

Magic Tree House Fact Tracker #31: China: Land of the Emperor’s Great Wall: A Nonfiction Companion to Magic Tree House #14: Day of the Dragon King (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))
is made to go with the Magic Tree House book “Day Of The Dragon-King (Magic Tree House 14, paper)” but it has a lot of information that was helpful for this study as well.

We also got “The Story of Paper” by Ying Chang Compestine.

I had planned to try to make paper with the boys but when it came down to it what I wanted to do proved to be too much work for me to jump in on.

I found resources for Gunpowder hard to come by but here are two interesting video clips we found on the history channel’s site,

Gunpowder: A Brief Big History

Gunpowder to Guns

characters7

I did decide to delve into Chinese Characters and Mandarin this time though.

characters6

The boys had a lot of fun trying out different characters for numbers.

characters5

The book they used is “The First 100 Chinese Characters: Simplified Character Edition: The Quick and Easy Way to Learn the Basic Chinese Characters (Tuttle Language Library)”.

characters2

We used Tuttle Chinese for Kids Flash Cards Kit Vol 1 Simplified Character: [Includes 64 Flash Cards, Downloadable Audio, Wall Chart & Learning Guide]: Simplified Character v. 1 (Tuttle Flash Cards) to learn some Mandarin.

I have the Early Start Mandarin Chinese with Bao Bei the Panda
videos for children that are great at teaching words and phrases but they proved too young for the boys now.

I was a little sad they are too big for them.

I remember how much they liked them when they were little and how great they are at teaching Mandarin!

chopsticks

I had the boys try out chopsticks for the first time as well!

It did not go well with my youngest…

HA!

If you want to see other resources that I saved but did not get to, check out my Pinterest board for Ancient History, here.

Jesus and the Early Church

To go along with our study of Hero of Alexandria we learned about Jesus the and the early church.

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At first I thought we would just read the bible but just reading one chapter after another of the new testament was not working.

So I bought “Case for Christ for Kids (Case for… Series for Kids)” by Lee Stobel

 

 We had really enjoyed “Case for a Creator for Kids (Case for… Series for Kids)” by Lee Stobel for our Creation Study.

Case for Christ for kids was a great book!

It laid out the argument against Christ and used logic to look at the fallacies in a kid friendly way.

Both of his kids books we have read have been a great intro into Apologetics.

The Adventures in Odyssey has several audio shows about Jesus as well that would be great for this study.

earlychurch

For the history of the Early Church we read, “The Ides of April (Ray, Mary, Roman Empire Sequence.)” and “Beyond the Desert Gate” by Mary Ray, “Attack at the Arena (AIO Imagination Station Books Book 2)” an imagination station book,

and “For the Temple A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem” by G.A. Henty(which you can get free for your kindle).

His books seem to be more geared towards 10+, but my oldest(8yrs old) enjoys them.

They are just a bit more of a challenge for him.

I also bought “Spartacus (Young Reading Series Two)” by Russell Punter since it was during that time period.