As I was browsing the DVDs at the library, I found
Standing With Stones, a documentary detailing many of the megaliths in Great Britain and Ireland. I checked it out, figuring it might be good filler for our history. We are learning about the middle ages, but since most of what we learn takes place in Europe, I figured it wouldn't hurt to travel back to ancient times in this area of the world.
Shane immediately started taking notes and learning the names of the different stone structures: stone circles, henges, cairns, cists, etc. He was busy writing down the locations of the different megalith sites, but the movie moved so fast we couldn't keep up! I didn't know how long the movie was, so we kept watching and watching and watching....pretty soon my living room looked like a public school classroom when the teacher puts a movie on: half the students were sound asleep and the other half were fooling around quietly. A phone call woke me up, and I had errands to run, so we packed up and left...
On our way to town, my kids had a great time pointing out large rocks that have been used for different purposes. The Longbranch Improvement Club uses large rocks to outline their parking lot; this became the Longbranch Stone Row. The cemetery was filled with dolmen. The guy who lives at that one spot that gets icy at the top of the hill, he decorates the end of his driveway with cairns. He happened to be building a new one, which was a major bonus for us sight-seers!
When we got home, one of my educated children demonstrated learning with her very own stone circle. Whether or not it was made from pagans who danced on Sunday remains to be seen. For anyone who was worried that we were only doing math and language arts this year, stop worrying! There are so many awesome amazing things that just don't fit into normal textbooks and aren't on the radar of the normal lesson planner. I love finding a random documentary and using it for "schoolwork." I can't imagine sitting down with my lesson plans and thinking, "Hmm. Next spring, I definitely want to cover
eschatology, so I better go and find our supplies..." Nope. It's more like, "Next year is American History. I better go find my
Jean Fritz books."
