Arabian Nights "Homeschool Springtime Matinee"

On Tuesday, May 11th, Arabian Nights proudly presents "Homeschoolers Springtime Matinee". Lunch will be served while you enjoy Central Florida's most family-friendly dinner attraction. Show time will be at noon. The cost is $15 for students and $20 for adults. For more information, call Heather Moore at 407-589-2411.

Learning About the Pilgrims

We're fortunate to have a great unit study going on with SLC right now - one class each on the Pilgrims, Native American Indians and first Thanksgiving. The fourth week we'll have a potluck Thanksgiving celebration at a local park. At each event, we're collecting food donations for the Sharing Center to help with their needs for the holiday.

This week, the series kicked off with a great class on the Pilgrims. The kids learned when and why the Pilgrims came to America, the conditions they faced on their voyage and the challenges that met them when they arrived here. The craft entailed drawing a map that showed the route the Pilgrims sailed and sculpting a model Mayflower complete with paper sails. Both kids loved the project and came home full of info about the Pilgrims and their journey.

Medieval Castles

Today we continued our study of Medieval Times with a class on castles and castle life. The kids received swords and princess hats to prepare themselves to become lords and ladies of the castle. After a story and short video on the features and functions of castles, the kids had a chance to make their own. Ours still needs the finishing touches (bricks and a drawbridge) but is turning out really cute!

While Noah was drawing the door and windows on the castle, Ava helped me cut strips of different colors of cellophane for our stained glass window. We made identical cutouts in two sheets of black cardstock, then glued the strips of colored cellophane in between. The end result looked fantastic!

While we're disappointed to be missing the final class in this series (about knights), we'll be enjoying our vacation and looking forward to diving into the makeup materials when we get home.

Medieval Times

Monday started a three-week unit with SLC on Medieval Times. This is a topic we've never touched on, so I was excited to dive in. The first class focused on the feudal system. The kids donned their crowns, learned about life in a Medieval village, watched a video and put together this super-cute craft.

Next week we'll be learning about castles and castle life, but we'll miss the final class in the series (about knights) since we'll be out of town that week. I thought about arranging a family date to Arabian Nights until I checked the prices online today (yikes - almost $70/adult!), so I think we'll make a trip to the library instead!