Knights & Nobles is a four week unit study with an optional fifth week. Each week had a different focus.
Week 1 - Castles
Week 2 - Kings & Queens
Week 3 - Knights
Week 4 - Life on the Manor
Option Week 5 - A Royal Medieval Feast
These are designed to be done one day a week with the read aloud read through the week or you could do bits of it each day. Each week has a list of resource books including the Dewey Decimal numbers (I just request the books online).
I want to take every opportunity for learning even though it says there is "no-prep" I had to add some additional things to each week.
We used this one day a week but read the read aloud most days. That day I put aside some of other normal studies and we did the study for that there. There is a Bible/devotional included in each week, an art and craft, history, a bit of math, with ideas for field trips.
During Week 1 we studies castles. We read David Macalay's Castle. I have a confession that book has been on my shelf for years and we finally read it for the first time.
One of the extras that I found and included was a worksheet of the parts of the castle. This worked together with the book. As J drew his castle, he was telling me the various parts of the castle.
We did some artwork related to stained glass windows. J found some stained glass as we were driving around town.
We drove to one our favourite castles not far from our house.
Week 2 we learned about Kings and Queens. I spent the time focusing on English Kings and Queens including watching our favourite Horrible Histories. The Bible study that week was Esther so we had fun doing a puppet version of the story.
Week 3 was about knights and we enjoyed reading about knights and talking about different aspects of their life. Through the weeks I read The Door in the Wall another book that has been on our shelves but not read.
Week 4 was Life on the Manor which was about occupations and how people received their family name. One of the book that I found at the library which was just at Miss K's level was Usborne's See Inside the Middle Ages which had a great page on village life.
I did add some extra things to each week mainly because it was a perfect time to do some artwork related to stained glass or to give the kids something to do hands-on.
We have studied the Middle Ages and done various activities over the years so in some ways I don't think there was anything new in this for my children. I think this would be great for a short unit study for a co-op. J is probably at the upper age limit for this and that might be a factor in how I viewed the product.
It was fun to put aside our regular studies one day a week and together studying Knights & Nobles of the Middle Ages.
Homeschool Legacy has a number of Once-a-Week unit studies.
Beth
that would be neat to have a real castle close by to visit.
ReplyDelete