Today for her English, Emily had to write a poem - either funny or serious.  Discussion ensued on what she could write about.  Bethany was in the middle of a report on King Henry VIII's wives, so I suggested Emily write a limerick about him. 

This is what she came up with:

Henry's Wives

by Emily

Two of the wives of Henry the VIII

Had a very fatal fate (beheading)

Two of them were forced,

at the King's command to be divorced.

Then one had died,

and one survived,

and that was the end of the wives.

~ all because he wanted an heir!

Silly Henry!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today in Story of the World, we learned about the beginning of the Renaissance, and how Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press.

Here us a Youtube video explaining how the printing press worked:

Demonstrating the Gutenberg Printing Press

This is a post by Jeanne at A Peaceful Day about a beautiful pop-up story book of Gutenberg.

~~~

Bethany's Narration:

Johannes Gutenberg made a printing press from an old winepress.  He stamped the letterblock with ink made from soot and linseed oil, and put it in a type of folder.  Then he turned a wheel and a lever to flatten it, squeezing the paper and the block together.  Then he turned the wheel back to push the folder back and took the paper out.  On it would be printed the words that were on the letterblock.

~~~

Emily's Narration:

His printing press worked like this: taking raw cow hide leather he soaked it in cow wee overnight then rinsed it by hand.  Then using ink made of linseed oil and soot, and a roller, he rolled the ink onto the leather.  (This refers to the "pounders" he used to pound the ink onto the letterblock).

Next he carefully placed a piece of paper in a folder-like thing called a frisket.  He placed the inked leather on his machine.  He then rolled the frisket with the paper in it over the leather and turned a lever to press the ink onto the paper.

On the youtube video the man demonstrating printed a page of the Gutenberg Bible.  It had a space left for when it got illuminated and illustrated.  For Monks writing book by hand it would take years to print the entire Gutenberg Bible.  Johannes Gutenberg and twenty helpers printed 450 Bibles in one year.  The very first book he printed was the Gutenberg Bible.

 ~~~

Gutenberg is credited with printing the first Bible.  He also printed paper indulgences, sold by the Roman Catholic church to pardon the buyer from of his sins.  This is what sparked Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses, which where 95 reasons why the church should not sell indulgences.  Luther had studied the book of Romans which convinced him that God promises forgiveness to all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ as their Saviour.

~~~

Here is a picture of a page from one of Gutenberg's Bibles:

~~~

Gutenbergprinted the text, leaving a blank space for the illumination of the first letters of a chapter.  The illumination and decoration was completed by monks.

~~~~~~~~~~~

This morning we had another History lesson, which hasn't happened in a long time!  Our dear friends with whom we used to get together for History and IEW lessons have packed up and moved to North Dakota, where my friend is originally from.  We will miss them dearly, but we will carry on alone, sniff sniff!  We are using Story of the World Volume 2:  The Middle Ages.  Today's lesson was about Marco Polo, the explorer to China who travelled the Silk Road along with his father, Niccolo.

So, don your paper bag Chinese hat and come along with us:

First up, we must pass through the hot and treacherous Taklamakan Desert:

We'll stop for a rest on a comfy chair and enjoy a snack at the oasis of Tun-huang-shih:

We must now pass south of another desert, the Gobi Desert:

The Gobi Desert is not so treacherous, it has some oases along the way, so let's stop and have a glass of water.

We'll take a rest and have another snack at Loyang-shih.

Now we'll take the Yellow River to Peking:

In Peking, we can trade for Chinese goods:

and visit the Emporer, Kublai Khan in his palace:

Here we will find gold, ivory, silk and exotic animals. 

We'll relax here and then return home to Italy.

It'll take us about four years ;-)

Hope you enjoyed the journey with us.  Thanks Susan Wise Bauer, we are loving the Story of the World!

~~~~~

For our History lessons we are currently working through Susan Wise Bauer's Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages.  We thoroughly enjoyed Volume 1 and are doing Volume 2 with another family, which is lots of fun and ensures that we complete a lesson every two weeks.  I find Story of the World very easy to use & prepare for.

Instead of just filing the activity pages, we cut & paste the pages into a visual diary which is more like a scrapbook.  Here is a sample of each of the girls' books.

Ainsley's entry on the Rise of Islam in the Middle Ages

Emily's entry showing her illuminated letter, which the Monks used to do with the first letter of a manuscript.  The other page is a map of the Byzantine empire.

Bethany's entry on the Crusades

Last week our lesson was on King Richard the Lionheart & Prince John.  The girls each made their own Magna Carta on some tea-stained paper to make it look authentically old!  Here they are: