Christopher Columbus




Flat Earth Map

Apparently, Christopher Columbus had a secret life. Yep. His name was Grigori Esomethingorotherovich. You can read all about it here. We discovered this while having a discussion on the flatness of the world and how one's point of view could affect their willingness to hare off to parts unknown in order to map uncharted territory.

This discovery may lead to a discussion of the meaning of irony...

The Silk Road

We're studying Marco Polo this week, and in the process we are learning about the Silk Road. The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has an excellent website with all kinds of images (some of mummies, fyi) for kids to see. Quite interesting!

Michael Burgan's Marco Polo is a great read for grammar level students, and an 1845 copy of The Travels of Marco Polo is free on Google books for upper level readers who want to explore more of his travels.

These Shishi lions have traditionally stood in front of Chinese imperial palaces from the time of the Han Dynasty, and they would have been a familiar sight for Marco Polo in his travels. They always come in pairs, male and female, and are carved from stone or molded from bronze. The male has his paw on the world, and the female has a cub on her back. We are going to carve simplified versions from soap this week.

We will also be making their fried dough twists and some "silk" flags with block printing for an art project.

Duluth Harbor and Aerial Lift Bridge

We were in Duluth for the homeschool convention in April. As we were watching out the window, this ship came into the harbor. Hopefully, these photos give some sense of the scale of these ships. They are absolutely huge.

As you can see, the lift bridge is large as well. Each time a ship enters the harbor, the bridge sounds its horn and the ship answers back.

I never get tired of watching them. There is a free Maritime Museum to the left of the brown buildings. There is a piston from a ships engine that is two stories tall. It is not from a large ship, only from a tug. Amazing!

On Friday, while we were waiting for a seminar, we looked out the window at Lake Superior (behind the ship below) and there were five ships out on the lake waiting to enter the harbor. The waves were so wild they were backed up that badly. Usually five is a large number of ships to enter the harbor over the entire course of the day!

Cookie Dough Maps

What do you do with bored, restless children on an unexpectedly cool spring day? Feed them copious amounts of sugar, of course! It's not as bad as it looks. I promise. They played with the peanut butter clay and made maps while reviewing their geography terms. (I'm pretty sure none of them thought they were doing school!) And slowly, one little chunk at a time, they ate them up over the next few days. One word of caution, though: everything will smell like peanut butter for a few days.

For the recipe, go to this link and click on General. You'll have to scroll down a bit to the "Cookie Dough Recipe."