Monks and Muslims

Just playing catchup for the last couple of weeks of school. We are doing a patched-up kind of World History in One Year, if you are wondering why we are smack in the Middle Ages in January. It seems like that should be an August/September thing.

Last week, we were talking about the monks who lived throughout Europe. Peanut (age 9) decided to make a Monk's Supper, which would consist of lentil soup, bread, and water. She chose to make the lentil soup, and I was going to make the bread, but Junior (age 6) told me he would like to make the bread. I was surprised and I wouldn't have thought of that, but he did a very good job.


I did not get a picture of the lentil soup, but it wouldn't have made a great picture anyway. Peanut did well, though. It had a lot of flavor. The monks could not have any four-legged animals, I used chicken broth as a soup base. They would not have had butter with their bread unless it was a special occasion, so we pretended it was a special occasion. The bread would have been okay without it though.

This week we talked about the Muslims invading the land of the Franks. The Muslims had collected a lot of treasure in Spain and they were very protective of it. When they were fighting the Franks, they decided to defend their tents which were full of booty. This was a mistake, of course. They lost and they were not able to defeat the Franks. The kids made a tent full of booty (and, yes, they thought that was hilarious!!) They put in jewelry and all sorts of treasure, and then Bubby and I came after it. Well, they wanted it to be that way, but Bubby really wanted to play with them, not attack them, so he ended up deserting and moving to their side. He had fun in the tent, too.

Early Middle Ages stuff

Celtic Round House Slide Show



Here is a neat slide show we found today. It shows how Celtic round houses were possibly built. We are studying the Celts this week and Peanut has chosen to draw her own Celtic house with furniture, etc. She is into designing houses right now, so this fell right in.



Junior and I made a cardboard sword for him. We learned that in the early Middle Ages, swords had a more rounded end, and later they had a more pointed end, because of the armor that the soldiers began to wear.