Awesome History Middle Ages: Mongols- Magellan

 Our seventh session covered the Mongols, Marco Polo, and Joan of Arc (chapters 58-60).

I had planned to play Marco Polo (like Blind Man's Buff), but it was a beautiful day, so we went on an expedition like Marco Polo.

Mostly we walked down through the woods and lake, giving  Marco Polo like explanations for the things we encountered.

These were misunderstandings: "Look!  Their roads are carved from a single piece of stone, many miles long!", exaggerations: "The trees are hundreds of feet tall!", and actual facts, "They have chariots that move without horses!"

            Back home, our art activity was the making of quadrants.

We got our quadrant patterns (and excellent directions for making and using them) here. 

Our snack was Mongolian pork with rice.

Longtime readers know that I am fascinated by all things Mongolian, and the Mongolians did grow grain, even while they were  nomads.  Before leaving their winter quarters, they would throw the seed on the ground and trample it in with their horses.  By the time they returned in the fall, the grain was ready.

Our 8th session was Print, Powder, and the Age of Exploration (chapters 61-63). This was yesterday, so I am finally caught up!

Our active activity involved gunpowder!  Most fireworks are illegal in my state, but they do allow tiny firecracker type things, so we had fun with those (outside!).

Our art activity was printing.



Primarily we were doing potato printing.  If you haven't done it, you cut a potato in half, carve it as a stamp, dip it into paint, and press it onto paper.

I also had a bunch of rubber stamps (especially letter stamps) and ink pads that I put out.

This is one of those simple projects that makes me glad we are doing the class: everyone is wildly successful at their own level of skill, and everything is amazing at the end!





Our snack was Mexican snacks (snacks from the New World!) provided by our very own Miss Shelli (who is half Mexican).  Yum!

She had bought a lot of different things like guava paste, sesame cakes, and pork rinds (common in Mexico and brought over by the first Europeans!).  She said fresh fruit would be a great choice.  It's served sliced, spritzed with lime juice, then sprinkled with  chili sugar (like cinnamon sugar with chili instead of cinnamon).