Thursday Adventures!

In a previous post I mentioned the awesome New World Explorers unit study we purchased from Homeschool in the Woods.  We are just getting started with this unit study, but so far my kids are loving it.  There are so many fun activities for them to do!  At the end of the unit study we have a trip to tour a life size replica of the Nina and the Pinta.  How cool is that?  Our first lesson was about why these explorers went exploring in the first place.  We completed a "lift the flap" book to go in our lap books.  The kids had fun smelling all the spices and adding them to the flap books.

The boys checking out the ginger & cinnamon.

Haley's favorite spice was cinnamon!

Next we moved on to adding some clipart of the gold and riches the explorers hoped to find, little pouches (made from packing tape) of dirt to show the land they were looking for, drew crosses to stand for Christianity, and lastly they drew pictures or used clipart to show adventure of some sort.

Haley working on her flap book.

Adam hard at work gluing his clipart in his book.

Ryan showing his flap book off.

Lastly, we read about life on board the ship.  What they ate, where they slept, what types of jobs they had, and what they did in their free time.  We decided to skip drying meat and making jerky, and moved on to the knot tying lessons.  They had such fun trying out the three different types of knots.  First they tried the "stopper".  All three thought this one was the easiest.

Next they tried their hands at the "bolin".  This was their favorite, and led them to use them to lasso everything in sight, including their stuffed animals.  Here's Haley showing off her "bolin" knot.

Lastly, they attempted to make a "sheepshank".  This one was really hard.  Haley tried to help Ryan, but to no avail. 

 I ended up stepping in and we finally managed to make one somewhat pitiful "sheepshank" knot.  This is a really complicated knot!  I imagine it would be easier to do with real rope and not the twine type we used.  Here's Adam showing off my creation.

This is such a fun unit study, and the kids really like all the fun activities.  We've read about all of these things before, but actually getting to try out some of the things that sailors would have done really brings the lesson home.  Tomorrow we'll finish up the first lesson by making spice cookies from some of the wonderful spices we smelled.  YUM!