Week 18 and 19---Tudor Family History Study

We’ve done the usual math, spelling, English, and geography these last two weeks.   But what has really stood out is our history study.   Studying the Tudor and Stuart family has ignited a passion for history that I haven’t seen in either E-R or I-E before.   It was exciting to see that passion emerge as they researched deeper and deeper on their own.
 
Since so much of our study this week came from free online sources I went ahead and but together a pinterest board outlining our study this week.   Tudor Study Board

We first read about the War of the Roses in The Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World (The White Kingfisher).   Assignment after reading---write a paragraph summarizing the War of the Roses.  E-R felt that she didn’t have enough information, so we found this awesome site which does an excellent job at explaining the details, key people, and  dates of the War of the Roses.  In addition to her paragraph she completed
 

a whose who of the House of Lancaster and the House of York

and

The Red Rose of Lancaster

and

The White Rose of York

After reading some more in The Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World (pages 350-351), we created a mini timeline of King Henry VIII’s lifetime as well as other events happening during his lifetime.




 We also learned the nifty rhyme: 

Divorced,

beheaded,

died;

Divorced,

beheaded,

survived

This site summarized each wives life as well as provided a quiz about these infamous wives.   (I scored a 7 out of 10!  See how you do!).
  

Next I-E and I moved on to Chapter X of The Story of the Renaissance which gave an overview of The Tudor Dynasty.  E-R was still working on her War of the Roses project, so she skipped this reading.  

Elizabeth I was featured in a chapter of Outrageous Women of the Renaissance 



as well as in The Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World (pages 374-377).  Following reading both sources the girls wrote a paragraph about Elizabeth’s life—an excellent exercise in narrowing a topic’s details to the most important.  

And of course after learning about Elizabeth I’s life, we had to learn more about Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots.   I found this awesome audio book at my new favorite find



After listening to this book, I-E and E-R wrote paragraphs summarizing Mary Stuart’s life.

We practiced highlighting notes using these articles:

Elizabeth the First: An Overview

Elizabeth’s Spy Network

After the girls highlighted their notes, 

I typed them up. 

We used the typed notes for several different activities.
 

Oral summarizations

Quiz Taking---I only let them use their typed notes to answer a pop quiz

And we worked on paring down the notes, as E-R had a tendency to highlight most of the article.
 

All the reading on spying and secret codes lead to

secret messages!

We also found this awesome online game

Elizabethan Spying Game 

Which uses the same code Mary Stuart used during her imprisonment.
 

This site helped us create a Tudor family tree.

We finished off our study by coloring the map included in our History Portfolios.

We enjoyed our study of  The Tudor family and look forward to the beginning of our study of Spain’s political history during the Renaissance.