We love History

I have a confession to make:  I hated history in high school and college.  “Yawn” is all I can say about my experience with history.  When we set out to homeschool, I decided that I wanted my kids to love history. 

We began using The Story of the World and I was a bit apprehensive.  How could anyone make history the least bit interesting?  However, it did not take long and we were hooked.

The author writes the history lessons in story form and it is like she is talking to the children.  There’s no boring facts and blah, blah, blah.  And I’ll let you in on a little secret:  I’ve learned a lot of history that I didn’t know from my school years. (And I’m loving it!)

We just finished up Volume two:  The Middle Ages.  For those of you familiar with the history rotation schedule  and the ages of my children: no, we are not on schedule.  We go very slowly through the books and supplement with many other living books.  Actually, we are going to spend the next three weeks learning history out of living books!  We have really enjoyed the middle ages but we’ve all been anticipating our arrival in “the New World”.

So today, to complete our tour of the middle ages, we took a test had a battle in the English Channel.

First, the ship makers had to build their fleet for the battle between Spain and England.

The English Navy all lined up and ready for battle.

The Spanish Armada also readies itself for battle.

The Colonel of the English Navy with his “spiffy” hat.

The English Navy leaving port from Plymouth.

It seems that the English Channel had some type of suds issue going on.  Maybe choppy water?  (I laughed when they told me they added bubbles to the English Channel.  I asked why and they told me that surely the English Channel had bubbles.  Why, of course!)

I do not have pictures of the actual battle because our very over zealous Spanish Armada decided to change history and sunk many of the ships before an actual battle.  But the English still won with two boats standing at the end. 

The ship builders built a few more ships to take outside to explore new lands but decided to stay port side upon the issuance of a poor weather report.

We had a great time and are looking forward to our new journey across the ocean and into the new land!