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 […]

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 […]

Recipes for the Medieval Feast

  Menu: Wassail Selection of Cheeses Bread Potato and Leek Soup Pheasant from the King’s Forest (aka Roasted Chicken Legs) Wild Boar (aka Ham) apple tarts gingerbread Recipes: For the wassail, we just used warmed apple cider. You could put some mulling spices in it if you want to. Leek and Potato Soup One bundle […]

Decorating for the Medieval Feast

  We celebrated our Medieval Feast last night! Usually our feasts only involve our family, but we did something on a slightly larger scale this time. Another family joined in, as well as my dad. The children from both families met earlier this week and prepared a program to present during the feast. It was […]

Viking Feast

Beef stew, rye bread with butter, non-alcoholic mead, and soft cheese. No feast has been more highly anticipated in our home than the Viking Feast. My husband can trace his Norwegian heritage all the way back to Harald Hardrade, the Norwegian King who was killed in 1066 in the Battle of Stamford Bridge….and beyond. My […]

Viking Hnefetafl

  One of our favorite activities while studying the Vikings was playing the game of Hnefetafl (pronounced Nef-uh-tah-full). Hnefetafl is a strategy game like chess, though much simpler to play. It simulates a Viking raid, with attackers trying to capture the King and defenders trying to protect him. We made the game board years ago, […]

Cookie Dough Maps, Take Two

Can you find the marshmallow glacier in this picture? Ever since we started school a few weeks ago the kids have been asking about when we’ll make Cookie Dough Maps. I tried this last year when we studied ancient Egypt, as an alternative to the “Let’s-keep-it-forever-mom!” salt dough maps. Little did I know I was […]

Roman Mosaic Stepping Stones

  We have been wanting to make stepping stones for our bird garden all summer! As we finish up our study of the Romans, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to “kill two birds with one stone” (shh! Don’t tell my bird-loving boys that I used that phrase! They prefer to say “hatch two birds […]

Cookie Dough Maps, Take Two

Ever since we started school a few weeks ago the kids have been asking about when we’ll make Cookie Dough Maps. I tried this last year when we studied ancient Egypt, as an alternative to the “Let’s-keep-it-forever-mom!” salt dough maps. Little did I know I was starting a tradition. A tradition that is not, let’s […]

Roman Feast

  We kicked off our back-to-school hands on projects with a Roman Feast this week. We ended the school year studying Ancient Rome and picked up where we left off with a look at how the Roman Empire fell. Things are crazy busy right now, so I wanted to keep this feast simple. I managed […]