We have been having a wonderful time learning about Mount Vesuvius, Pompeii and Herculaneum.
I must say first that I don't 100% like the series because it talks about magic and glorifies Morgan Le Fey and topics like feminism, but I also have to say that they inspired my oldest to begin reading and now they have encouraged my youngest as well, so, for our family, with a bit of discussion about these issues, they are worth using. They are exciting stories featuring children their age and they are usually set in either a historical or scientific/geographical location. The plots usually are involved around the children on some sort of important mission. I have also found them useful to introduce note-taking since one of the characters, Jack, takes notes from factual books. A paragraph or two from the book is included and then it shows what pertinent words he includes from the paragraph into his notebook, much like I am asking my students to do.
This week we read Vacation Under the Volcano,
and we also read Pompeii...Buried Alive by Edith Davis . When we went to the library, I also noticed a book about Pompeii, Bodies From The Ash, Life and Death in Ancient Pompeii by James Deem.
In 1863, an excavator discovered, while excavating the site of Pompeii, there were hollow places in the shape of the bodies where the skeletons were found. As it turns out, the bodies covered in hot ash and enveloped by volcanic material decayed, spaces were left around the skeletons. The excavator used an ingenious method of filling these hollow places with plaster, and once the surrounding debris was chipped away, the detailed plaster casts preserved imprints of the people's dying moments, showing their facial expressions and body positions as well as their clothing and possessions. Deem explains how scientists have used these molds and other evidence to piece together the life styles and what the eruption of Mount Vesuvius was like. It also shows the difference in the Pompeii and the nearby Herculaneum.
We were blessed that
Hodgepodge posted a tutorial on how to make a pastels picture of a volcano, so we had to do it!
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| beginning at the upper left corner, James (age 12), Katie (age 21), Alex (age 18), lower left, Katie (21), Quentin (age 8), Phyllis |
Notice that Quentin added the Roman citizens to his picture, making a pretty accurate pictorial narration.
So, an unplanned study took shape almost all on its own because we just let it happen.
resources:
And, by the way, Katie is half-way through her project of folding 1000 paper cranes.
