Field Trip: Fort Raleigh and Lost Colony

Last Friday, we went to Fort Raleigh in Manteo, NC. We watched a film on the Lost Colony and toured the old Earthen Fort. The kids took a class on Native American markings and got to design their own markings for themselves.

We toured the backstage area of the Lost Colony. We got to see the stage, costume area, etc. We even got to watch them making scenery for an upcoming production of Oklahoma!

We went to see a production of the Lost Colony that evening. We went a bit early and met some of the actors and interacted with them. My husband even juggled with one of the entertainers. My 8 year old son was positive that he was going to hate this show and really resisted going. However, in the end he really enjoyed himself and was probably the one who enjoyed it the most. We got seats on the last row of the producers circles which ended up being a great spot. Soldiers marched past us several times and when the Native Americans were hiding in preparation of attack, they hid right behind us!!! It made things a bit more exciting to say the least.

Field Trip: Roanoke Festival Park

On Friday, we went to Roanoke Festival Park. It was a great field trip to go along with our history studies. We had a lot of fun and learned quite a bit also. Roanoke Festival Park is very hands on. It has an indoor museum, an outdoor settlement sight and a representation of the ship, Elizabeth II.



The indoor museum has a lot of things for kids to do. They can dress up as explorers, pirates, early colonists, turn of the century beach goers, and farmers. They can learn to use an astrolabe, pretend to be in the civil war, scrub their laundry, and climb all over a variety of boats.

Aboard Elizabeth II, they can see how a real ship looks and interact with live docents. My kids loved turning the capstan and we played a game of Nine Men's Morris while on board.

At the settlement site, the kids tried on armor and saw what it was like to live in army tents. They did a pole arms class too. However, I think their favorite thing was playing skittles, an early form of bowling.

The park is adding more exhibits to include more Native American culture. We can't wait to make another trip to see it. Meanwhile, we satisfied ourselves with playing with hoops.

Renaissance Faire

Our family loves Renaissance Faires. We go to one on the fall every year. Unfortunately, we have trouble getting to the one in the spring due to weather but we go when we can. Luckily, the weather was good this year and we could take advantage of it. After all, we are studying the Renaissance times in history.


Of course, we go in costume. Unfortunately, we couldn't find Harrison's ring mail armor that he made in the fall. It fell victim to one of my company's coming cleaning sweeps. However, we had one that he and his dad made two years ago. This scale mail shirt is easy and inexpensive to make. They traced a dog tag on old cereal boxes and cut out. Then spray painted them silver and glued them onto a black t-shirt in a scale mail pattern. My son opted not to wear matching pants lol.

Melissa is wearing a top we found at Goodwill. It has the lace up front and some nice detail up close. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures before she dripped ketchup all over it!!!

Melissa had trouble deciding what to do/get. She was going to get her face painted but decided that for about the same amount of money, she could get a henna tattoo and it would last more than a day.

Harrison took part in a class on pole arms. He was the second youngest to take it and the youngest to complete it. He really enjoyed it and even though the rest of us observed the entire class, he gave us blow by blow details. Here he is marching with his squad. He is concentrating hard on keeping that pole up!

This is the way to deal with sibling squabbles. Just kidding. They did like sparring with each other. Other things they did at the Faire: shoot crossbows (Harrison hit the dragon), ride ponies, hunt for dragon eggs, watch a magic show and a joust and then performed a show of their own with our pet griffin. We also looked at every single weapon for sale and I mean every. single. one.

Terra Cotta Warriors

We are studying the journey's Marco Polo in geography. We reached the Great Wall of China and discussed the Qin Dynasty. Of course, it's impossible to talk about the Qin Dynasty without mentioning the Terra Cotta Warriors! My kids were already familiar with the warriors from watching the Mummy 3 and were really excited to make their own warriors.


First we made our "Terra Cotta", bascially we made a salt dough and colored it with red and yellow food coloring and paprika. It took A LOT of kneading but the result was close to the terra cotta. We then made our soldiers and horses, using cheese grater, toothpicks, etc to add details. Afterwards we baked at 250 degrees for a couple of hours.



Ta Da! The fiercest warriors to ever come out of my oven! I think they may be closer to "Terra Cotta Buddhas" but we had fun.

Renaissance Faire

Since we are testing this week, not much is happening. Therefore, I thought I would show some pictures of things we did pre-blog. We attended the Renaissance Faire in October. It's a yearly family tradition and we've only missed one year in the twelve years that my DH and I have been together. This year, it was especially fun because we were studying the Middle Ages and early Renaissance times. My husband helped Harrison make his Viking costume. There is a ring mail shirt under that "bearskin" vest. I will have to get a picture of the armor when we go to the spring Faire. Melissa and I put together a last minute costume too.

Harrison loves medieval weapons. At the Faire, he was able to use a bow and arrow, shoot a crossbow, throw an axe and "joust" with a lance.

The Court Jester

The pistol with the poison is in the flagon with the dragon, the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true...

Nobody does tongue twisters better than Danny Kaye. This movie is a true delight. It's got action without gore, romance without sex and nudity, and humor without crudeness and four letter words! The movie starts off a bit slow while the plot develops but once it gets going, the laughter rarely stops.

The movie takes place in the middle ages. Danny Kaye plays a hapless carnival worker who desires to be a hero like the Black Fox (character similar in vein to Robin Hood) who is trying to deposes the king. King Roderick seized the throne by killing all the royal family. However, a heir survived and he has the royal birthmark on his royal backside to prove it! In order to infiltrate the castle, Danny Kaye impersonates a court jester and runs into trouble when he attracts the attention of the princess (a very young Angela Langsbury).

The Court Jester is not a historically accurate movie nor is based on any incident in history. However, it does show the court intrigue that has always exhisted from ancient times to today's political climate. The comedy is slapstick, full of physical humor and wordplay. It spoofs The Adventures of Robin Hood several times and even has Basil Rathbone in a role very similar to one he played in Robin Hood.

I highly recommend this movie as a family movie. Adults will enjoy seeing Angela Langsbury before she wrote murder mysteries in Cabot Cove, Basil Rathbone being himself, and Glynis Johnson before she became Mrs. Banks in Mary Poppins and Alan Napier, who later played Alfred in the Batman series. The songs are entertaining. We particularly liked "You Can't Outfox a Fox" and "The Unemployed Jester." The humor is slapstick, filled with physical humor and word play and very witty. The only thing that I can think of that someone might find objection is the character of the princess's nanny. She has a witch persona though she does no real magic -just a hypnotist trick and some poison. The hypnotism scene results in one of the funniest scenes of the movie. The movie is a classic that I am sure you will enjoy. Get it? Got it! Good!