Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Vikings and Homeschooling

I've been feeling like I've been slacking a bit with homeschooling. Child-led learning is great, though sometimes the child does not seem to want to lead, or to stay on any particular path for longer than 15 minutes. So we've been playing lots of card games, computer reading games and doing Christmas crafts. Today, after Super Why on kids CBC, the show Are We There Yet? came on. They were visiting Iceland. They played on a longboat, went to a traditional thatched/sod home, ate traditional bread cooked over a fire the played games. So to get the kids excited I took them outside to play some of these games. One was arm wrestling. It's done standing on a plank of wood, you bow, grab opposite hands and try to force your opponent to step off the plank by arm wrestling them. Then the really fun one, place a pillow case over each child's head give them each a pillow. Heh, heh I love homeschooling! We also pretended to row a long boat across the North Atlantic from Norway to Iceland (of course we ran into mermaids on the way). Then we made this simple longboat craft:
We cut a rectangle in construction paper.

Folded it in half and cut it on angles on either side.

Taped the ends together.



Taped a sail to a mast made of a toothpick.



We placed play-doh in the boat to hold it open and hold up the mast. Then poked toothpicks through the side of the ship for oars.



Ta-dah!


Then we made a representation of Norway, the North Atlantic and Iceland for the kids to sail/row their longboats across. Then the play-doh was spotted and that lesson was over.