As we continue our study into the Middle Ages, our book for this week is Castle Diary by Richard Platt.  This lovely book is written as the journal of an 11-year-old boy who has been sent to live with his uncle to work as a page, in order to learn how to be a knight.

Some of our activities of the week include building the cardboard 3D castle from Dover Publications, while we learn about how and why castles were built, labeling a knight's armor and a castle, as well as  completing other minit books for our lap-n-notebook.

An accidental joy that occured today was a trip out with Nana to see the movie,
The Tale of Despereaux.  We have been planning to see this movie since the week after Christmas, but as it worked out, we went today.  We read the book last summer, so I should have thought of the connection, but for some reason, it just never occured to me.  Of course, like most movies based on books, creative liberties abound.  But what  a perfect movie it turned out to be, since the story is set in a castle and the main character exhibits wonderful knight-like character.  Born a castle-mouse, Despereaux learns about chivalry, truth, and courage from reading books (rather than eating them!), and finds himself using his character (and wits) to save the princess.  It was just perfect.  And gets 2 thumbs up from Ben, me and Nana!