Wee Gillis

Our Five in a Row studies have begun with the tale of Wee Gillis, a young Scottish lad, who can't decide if he wants to be a Higlander, like his father's relatives, or a Lowlander, like his mother's relatives.

The book is full of possibilities for our studies over the next few weeks. We've begun with an exploration of Scotland. Mane has drawn a flag and dug up a pile of images of bagpipes, kilts, tartans, and clan emblems on google images.

We've been reading our way through Scotland: Enchantment of the World by R. Conrad Stein. Last year we studied a number of biomes (ecosystems), including deserts and prairies. So, we're paying special attention to the biomes of Scotland, and we'll be making biome posters (or maybe a biome book) this year.

Our history studies just happen to intersect with our studies of Scotland, as well. We're still using The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emporer. (Also known as Story of the World or SOTW.) We're currently studying ancient Rome, and, of course, a very famous structure in Scotland is Hadrian's Wall, which the Romans built because they could not conquer the Scots, but they really wanted to keep them under control somehow. We've been looking at maps of the Roman empire and marveling that the Romans were not able to conquer Scotland when they had already conquered so much of the world.

Last night, Mane and I began a family tree on-line at geni.com. Since Mango's family comes from Scotland, our study of Scotland has peaked Mane's interest in family, ancestors, and genealogy.

In a totally other direction, a theme of Wee Gillis is the way Wee Gillis' lungs develop because he has to call the sheep in the lowlands and he has to hold his breath while "stalking stags" in the highlands. His well-developed lungs eventually make him able to play the biggest bagpipes in all of Scotland. Sooooo, as you may have guessed, we'll be studying lungs. Mane's interest in the human body has grown steadily since she was very small. This year we'll be making posters or booklets of the human body systems (similar to what we'll be doing for biomes). She's already studied digestion, the senses, the heart, and reproduction. So, we'll be tying it all together and adding the remaining systems this year. I anticipate that biomes and body systems will be semester-long or, perhaps, year long studies this year.