The Travels of Marco Polo (1271-1295) Part III: The Mongols

"They'd had no water since they'd left Ormuz and there was not a single home or village in sight. Finally, with great relief, the travelers reached a spring of cool water emerging from a deep cavern. Here they rested and drank deeply before continuing on their way." -Janis Herbert, Marco Polo for Kids

The next leg of the Polo's journey took them from the from the Persian deserts across mountains, through the high plains of Pamir, through more mountains until they reached Lop, the edge of the realm of Kublai Khan.

Here Polo learned about the Mongols, a nomadic people whose home was the Mongolian steppes. They traveled with the seasons, seeking grass for their livestock -horses, sheep, goats, camels and yaks. They lived in round tents called yurts or gers. Thee were made of cross-hatched willow branches covered with felt.

The structure can collapse small enough to fit on one draft animal and can be set up again in a half an hour.

These walls are formed by several individual sections of criss-crossed lattice work, much like baby gate.

We would like to have been able to make this lovely model of a Ger or Yurt but I haven't the fine motor skill and/or patience for it. In case you do, the tutorial on how to make it is at Imagine Childhood.
Several other designs can be found here at Yurt Building For Everyone, as well as at My Mommy Makes It.



We, however, wanted a flat design so that it could go in our book of Marco Polo's adventures, so we made these two-dimensional yurts instead. If you would like to make one, you will need a piece of paper for the background. We chose blue construction paper. You will also need some felt and some thin sticks or willow branches and some tape. First cut your felt into a rounded-top shape that will fit on your background. Trace it and put the felt aside for later.

If you want to have Mongols in your finished yurt, you should put them down now. We didn't think of it until we were finished and had to go back and tenderly peel off the tape to slip the picture of the people under it.  It would be easier just to put them in the center of your shape now instead. You can draw your own Mongols or you can print out one like we did. The picture we used (scroll down to the bottom) however, is a picture of the modern Mongols and not one of the time Marco Polo saw them.

We used willow branches since that is what they used. (Theirs, of course, were thicker branches.) The branches need to be stripped of leaves and cut into pieces that are appropriate for your size yurt. We used pieces about four inches long. You could also use thin twigs of any sort, if you do not have willow branches.

We found tape to be the easiest way to adhere the willow branch pieces and keep them in the criss-cross pattern. (See above.)

When you add your branches, don't forget to leave an opening for the door.

Now add your roof poles, which start at the tips of the lattice work and slant inward to meet in the middle, leaving a little hole in the top for smoke to leave the yurt.

 Now place your felt piece over your frame and cut a door in the felt where you placed your opening.  James chose not to put the people in the yurt, but to cut them out and have them as paper dolls to play with, going in and out of his yurt.



Tape the felt in place at the top. You can now open the door flap...



or you can lift the entire felt piece and look at the willow branch construction.

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Marco Polo (1271-1295) Part II: Travels Through Persia

Prior to Marco Polo's trip to Asia, his father had traveled to China and met Kublai Kahn and had promised to ask the Pope to  allow 100 of the west's wisest men to return with the Polos. So, when the Polos set out to return to Asia, they first arranged to meet with the Pope in Acre (Palestine). The Polos, with two friars accompanying them, boarded a ship that took them across the Mediterranean Sea to the port of Layas. The Sultan of Egypt was leading a great army against their neighbors so the friars fled back to their monastery. The Polos continued on, joining a caravan.

" They joined a caravan (an armed group of traders traveling together for safety) and set out on horseback."

They crossed plateaus grassy plains where Shepards herded their livestock and lived in felt tents. They passed bustling cities with noisy bazaars that sold the finest rugs. They went over twisting mountain roads, and they even viewed Mount Ararat, where Shepards grazed their sheep on mountain slopes. The caravan then came to a high desert, which was too harsh for their horses, so they had to abandon them for camels. Days would go by without a village in sight. Their destination was the city of Ormuz, a port city on the Persian Gulf.

Miss Mason describes Persia beautifully hundreds of years after the Polos were there, but much of her description was accurate even in the time the Polos traveled.
After reading about this part of Polos travels from several books, we made some pages for the boys' history journals.

I let them choose a piece of construction paper the color of their choice...

They added glue. Quentin liked to keep his in lines.

Jame spread it out in a solid block instead.

Next comes the sprinkle of sand.

Beware...this can be a messy project.

Next they added a silhouette of a camel rider to represent Marco Polo's caravan across the desert.

Narration or copywork can be now added to the back of the picture. Quentin is still on single words.

James noticed that the sand sprinkled all over the picture resembled a sandstorm...

and so he put some glue over the camel to keep the sandstorm effect.

We also traced the Polo's route so far from Venice through Arabia and Persia. We colored the Persian deserts. We also labeled Venice and Acre..

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The Travels of Marco Polo (1271-1295) Part I: Venice

Polo began his travels in Venice.

For the next few weeks we will be completing a leisurely study of the travels of Marco Polo, discovering the various lands he traveled through somewhat like he discovered them. We will learn about the terrain, the people and the history of the areas as we vicariously travel with Marco Polo. We will also be making a scrapbook of our projects, one page for each place we study.

Our collages of Venice were based on the picture below.

A picture of Venice in the Middle Ages.

This week we began where Polo began -in his hometown of Venice. We looked at pictures of Venice with its canal streets and lovely round topped homes lined closely together.

Using the idea I found at Laugh, Paint, Create we made collage pictures of Venice. Although the project was designed for young children, it is an interesting project for all ages. I cut out squares, triangles, half-circles and the like in advance and put them in piles on the table. After reading about Marco Polo and his getting ready for his adventures, I showed them the above map. Then I set them to work on their collages.

James added a gondola.

Quentin added a waterwheel and a swan to his.

Alex's looked a little more like modern art.

Another option for older students can be this technique found at laugh paint create.



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