2nd Semester, Week 1 Silver Chair

We had such a great discussion this week!  CS Lewis used the moon and water as majors themes in the Silver Chair.  I was extremely pleased with how well the kids participated and picked out all the instances of water and luna-cy.

Lunacy was thought to be caused by the moon in the middle ages. Because the moon never stood still, as it moved across the sky and was constantly changing shape, it was associated with unstableness and madness. The "lunatics" in Silver Chair are Prince Rilian and the Head Mistress of Experiment House.  There are references to forgetfulness, and trances caused by enchantments.  Other moon references are sadness, owls, and coming back into the overland during the night.

Water can also be described as unstable because as a liquid, it doesn't hold a shape.  The moon has influence over the water on earth.  There are a ton of references to water in Sliver Chair.  Rain, damp, wet, tears, a river, mist, fog, baths, fountain, waterfall, marsh, marshwiggle, "a wet blanket," snow, lake, and puddles, to name a few of them.

We lookied at pictures of the lions in Trafalgar square, as there is a reference to them in the book.  Holy cow!  Those suckers are huge!!  We ended by drawing characters from the book.  

Next week we are going to discuss the Christian symbolism in the Silver Chair.  The students were encouraged to be thinking of one word that describes what the Silver Chair is about.  To give you an idea, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is about redemption, Prince Caspian is about restoration, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is about transformation. 

Just for a heads up, The Horse and His Boy will be discussed on Feb 25th. 

 

Week 12 and Week 13

Week 12

I thought I posted before Christmas break.  Guess I was soooo ready for the break, I mentally checkout out before I posted.  haha. 

For the last class before the break, we discussed more of Voyage of the Dawn Treader and learned a little about life at sea. Class ended with tying common knots used on board ships. 

Week 13

We spent the entire class time learning about the British Empire.

We watched a bunch of cool videos and discussed each of  them a little. 

A Great British Timeline

Rise and Fall of the British Empire

Understanding the difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England 

Brief History of the Royal Family

History of the Union Jack ( I now understand those old movies of Robin Hood that had the Kings guards dressed in white tunics with a red cross.  I always thought it had to do with the crusades.  Nope, that was the English flag then.) 

How Scotland joined Great Britain

And this last one because it was fascinating.
How many countries are there?