If you missed Part 1 then let me recap- I am sharing the celebration days we have added to our studies going year by year. Our second year was spent in a 30' travel trailer as I mentioned in an earlier post, so sadly we only did 2 celebration days besides the annual Plimouth Plantation Day celebration, but they were big ones!
The first one was a Columbus celebration where we learned about and sang sea shanties, we learned how they used to measure speed and practiced it,, we measured out how big the boats would have been, and we made sea biscuits (ugh -they are awful!). We also played a game called "name the branch of science" where I read selected passages from 'The Log of Columbus' and they had to guess which branch of science Columbus was using his knowledge of to write the entries (we had discussed all the science knowledge needed in the field of navigation during the study). We also sampled some of the foods discovered in the West Indies that would have been new to the Europeans.
The kids had kept their own daily log throughout the study that they read to us on our celebration day. To end the day we used a night sky similator to look at the constellations that had been used for so many years as one of the only means of navigating. There were so many things I wanted to add to this celebration, so I think we will do it again in a few years! This was definitely a great celebration day though!
The second and last celebration day we did last year was 'Italy Day' to finish up our literature study of 'Pinocchio'. This one was done in costume- gondolier style- with white button up shirts, black pants, a red scarf around the neck, and to top it off we made black paper berets. We went all out for decorations on this one also with red, white, and green streamers and balloons hung all over the trailer and a red and white checked table cloth! The kids got to try their hand at painting while laying on their backs like Michelangelo, stomping grapes, and pretending to be gondoliers while singing Italian music to their passengers! We had planned on playing soccer too, but it rained the entire day. In the afternoon we ordered some pizza (there was no cooking an Italian meal in the trailer with everything else we had going on) and made a couple marionettes- one was Pinocchio and the other was the Blue Fairy (you can the instructions here, but I don't recommend doing this activity with little ones- I did most of the work). To end the day we had an Italian coffee dessert (store bought) that was delicious! I know the kids will never forget this one- so much fun! |
