The Ultimate Field Trip: Warwick Castle, England

At the end of September, Indy and I flew to England for a few days to visit Warwick Castle in Warwickshire, England. We had just learned about castles and their uses and construction. It was the perfect time to take a field trip to one of the best preserved Medieval castles in Europe.

Indy was fascinated by this HUGE tree in the castle entrance.

The original outer bailey walls and towers.

This is what happens when you don't listen to your mom!

The castle gate.  Indy was fascinated when a lady explained to him about the "murder holes."

Of course he loved all the weapons and armor.

This is up at the oldest part of the original castle on top of the motte, founded in the late 900's.

We climbed over 550 very tight spiraling stairs.

A view from the top of the battlements looking to the bailey and the motte.

This archer was amazing!  He demonstrated the long bow and a crossbow with amazing accuracy.

The birds of prey show was amazing.  This is Sid, a type of vulture.

We had a great time and learned a lot about Medieval castles.  Indy had a great time and came home with loads of stories about things that had gone on at the castle he'd been told by costumed workers.  It was the "best field trip ever."

Field Trip to Saalburg

Last Friday Indy and I went with our local hs group on a field trip! This time we went up to Saalburg (about 10 minutes north of Frankfurt) to the reconstructed Roman fort. Kaiser Wilhelm II, when he wasn't ticking people off and starting wars, was very interested in the Roman history in Germany (and probably a few other countries) and had the fort reconstructed on the site of the original ruins. He did take a few liberties, though. The crenelations on the outer wall are too narrow for the Roman weapons, but Wilhelm thought they looked better slim, so slim they were built. The buildings that have been reconstructed are now used mostly to house artifacts found on the site. Just a little ways from the fort is the Roman Limes (LEE-mess) which was the northern border of the Roman Empire.

The entrance, with the Emperor Hadrian, who had the Limes and fort constructed. Apparently Hadrian really liked walls.


They have some interesting interactive things for people to do, like try on chain mail. I think it weighed about as much as Indy.


This was one of the highlights for Indy. It's an entire Roman Legion composed of Playmobil soldiers. Indy has quite a few Romans, but not quite a Legion.

The back gate.


This barracks room (the part behind the glass) housed 8 soldiers. Eight! See the bunk bed? Four on the top bunk, 4 on the bottom. Yikes!


To make the buildings look more "Roman" the army would cover the stone with limestone and whitewash, then use brown paint to make the brick lines. They did this to every building and the outer wall! They must have had a lot of time on their hands. You can see a small patch here on this building.


Here is an entire building done up to look "Roman."


Indy in the guest house outside the fort.



We had a lot of fun and learned a lot of interesting stuff about the Roman experience in Germany.

Celebration and Field Trip 2

Oh dear. I had such good intentions of updating this blog more often and then, well, life went on. What has been going on? Well, school! The schools on post here started back on August 31 and Indy and I celebrated "not going to 'regular' school." We went to a local cafe and had HUGE strawberry milkshakes. What a lovely (and delicious) way to celebrate homeschooling.
A few weeks ago we got together with our local hs group and went on a field trip. And what a field trip it was! We first met up at the Mauer Rathaus (city hall) where they have a small museum devoted to finds in the area, including the jawbone of the Heidelberg Man (which we visited on our first field trip).

Indy outside the Rathaus

Rathaus






The X on the photo marks where they found the jawbone:




After we left the Rathaus we went to the site where they found many of the remains. You can't see where the jawbone was found (it's on the other side of the mountain), but many things were found on this side as well.


From there we drove up to Messel just south of Frankfurt to visit their museum and the famous fossil pit.




This is the fossil of a very small ancestor of the horse. They were only 10-20 inches from the ground to their shoulder. IIRC, 74 of them have been found in the fossil pit.



The weather was no cooperating, but we didn't let that stop us. Just as we left the ticket office of the pit, the bottom dropped out of the sky. I tried to take photos, but it was raining so hard the pictures were all blurry. This is the group at the gates of the pit:


The pit itself:


Indy in front of the pit:

Our guide showing some of the recently found fossils. She said they find birds, beetles and bats almost daily, and about 1 crocodile a month. It's a busy place!


He was really excited. I promise.



The guide handed everyone a piece of fossil and told them to take a really good look at it.


Then she told them it was fossilized poop. The kids were all grossed out.


It was a great trip and we had tons of fun and learned an awful lot.

First week back and a field trip

Ah, school! We are officially back session and so far, so good. We are using Sonlight this year and we are enjoying it. I've had to do a lot of tweaking to it, but it's nice to have most stuff just laid out for me. I open the schedule book and off we go. Heaven! There is a lot of stuff included in this program, but I've already started supplementing it. This is a Christian curriculum, but I actually prefer not to include religion in our homeschool. Why did I choose Sonlight then? Well, the fact that it's literature based and comes with fantastic books is the main reason, but again, having the schedule laid out was a HUGE plus. The biggest disappointment with the program was that the first 17 weeks of language arts (reading done by Indy) was from the Bible. Indy was so not happy about this. He wanted to read all the other books that were included. He knows his Bible stories and really, really, really did not want to read nothing but the Bible (seriously, every day for 17 weeks!). I knew this would not instill a love of reading in him, which is what I'm really trying to do this year, so I ordered a bunch of basic readers from Amazon, took out one of the blank scheduling sheets Sonlight so thoughtfully provides and made up my own LA program. He's so happy with it. I did leave in some of the Bible stories for him to read because he should be well versed in certain stories (for cultural references if nothing else), but 17 weeks? No thank you.
I've also added a section on world religions (using The Usbourne Encyclopedia of World Religions) because I think it is important for him to know about more than just Christianity. He finds the concept of other religions really interesting. We're also supplementing a world cultures program (using Children Just Like Me). He loves CJLM. I find it funny because it was published in 1994 and the fashions are early 90's awesome.
We're currently reading Charlotte's Web for our read aloud and it is great. Story time is his favorite time of the day. We leave the school room to go cuddle up on the sofa and read. I know I'm going to cry though. Charlotte dies, people! She dies! Hope I didn't ruin that for you. ;)

On Friday we took a field trip downtown (I promised him a field trip for our first week) to the Kurpfalz Museum. The jawbone of the Heidelberg Man is there and as we're working on prehistoric stuff (well, not yet, but we will) I thought it would be fun. He loved it! Unfortunately they don't let you photograph inside the museum (boo!) so I couldn't take any cool shots inside.

Indy waiting at the bus stop for the number 29 to the Bizmarkplatz. He's very excited.


Here we are!


We stopped for lunch at a cafe first (priorities people!). Indy ordered a Margherita pizza (cheese and basil). Look how big that thing is!


I had 2 bites! Indy ate the whole thing!


Outside the museum in the courtyard.

After we saw all the cool stuff (and there is lots of cool stuff there, including artifacts from when HD was a Roman encampment), we went to the cafe that is in the courtyard for a little desert. Indy loved the fountain.


In addition to some postcards we bought to show what we'd seen (since I couldn't take pictures-bitter much?) he HAD to have the Emperor's ring. He wore it all day at the Roman Fest the next day and told everyone he was the ruler. He's so humble, my boy.

Something he liked more than the fountain and the ring:


By the time we headed home, it was about 5pm and the evening entertainers were coming out to make their money. This guys was awesome! The 'dancing' puppet cracked us up.


The musicians were really good, but the dancer was a bit loopy. She kind of scared me. Plus her dancing style totally didn't match the music. Whatever.

There were actually about 7 more entertainers out, but I decided not to take pictures of them all. If you take photos, you kind of have to give them money, and well, some just weren't that good.
All in all, it was a great field trip. We saw tons of cool stuff and it helped him to relate more to the stuff we've been reading about. Go field trips!