My children love these unit celebrations we do with TOG.  They love the dressing up (as long as I dress up too) and performing for Dad, Grandma and Grandpa.  They are even willing to memorize, recite and give speeches!  Therefore, as the teacher, I am more than willing to do the extra work to motivate them to do extra work!  ;)  However, there are times when I think I must be a crazy woman!  About 30 minutes before our company was due to arrive, I was feeling like a crazy woman!  My children were in costume, and it was my turn.   Since my Elizabethan dress is laced up in back, I needed a little help from my husband.  This became sort of a comedy of errors!  (BTW, my part was to play Queen Elizabeth.)

I had to put on a bum roll to make my hips look big.  (I think the ones I've got are plenty big! I can't imagine why that was fashionable at one time.)  Then I put on the hoop skirt.  Then the underskirt, which peaks through the opening of the dress.  Then I needed help to put on the main dress.  I had decided not to do grommets for the lacing, since our last costumes all the grommets came out.  I thought I'd save a little money and time.  Ahem.  Who said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?"  Isn't that someone we'll do for our unit 4 celebration?  

To save time, I told my husband that the lacing works like our shoes:  pull out the lacing enough to slip the foot through, but not so much to have to redo all the lacing.  So we did that with the bodice.  He tried to slip it over my head...I got stuck!  I started to suffocate!  I started to hyperventilate!  I started to panic!  I fussed, "Just get the silly thing unlaced completely!"  His definition was completely different from my definition, because he kept trying to pull it over my head.  I told him, "Unlace it!"  Okay, that got the point across! 

Whew! Finally, it was over my head, I could slip my arms through the sleeves.  Now all he had to do was relace it.  Hmmmm, because there are no grommets, the lacing did not fit through the itty bitty holes.  Sigh.  I told him to go down to the pantry where I keep my sewing box.  Hours later it seemed, after the company arrived, and I had redone what I could of my messed up hair do, dh returned.  He works extremely methodically, precisely, patiently...and slowly!!!  In short, he was making me nuts!  I told him to get the tapestry needles out.  Now he couldn't get the lacing through the big eyes of the tapestry needles!  Sigh.  But, he had a plan! He got his lighter that he uses to burn off spare threads from his military uniforms and proceeded to burn off the edges of the lacing.  Panic in my heart ensued again!  I've heard ladies of this era catching fire!  If my dress catches fire, how will I ever get out of it?  Oh that's right, Stop! Drop! Roll!  That is, if I can move that quickly!  Well, long story short, dh wasn't able to lace the needles.  Sigh.  So I sent him down for packing tape to keep the ends from fraying.  In the meantime, a long meantime, I snipped off the burnt ends, because the heat melted the lacing and caused it to bump out, preventing it from ever fitting into the eye of the needle.  By the time he returned, I had managed to thread one of the needles, while reaching around the side.  Remember, I am wearing the dress while I am doing this.  Sheesh!  The things a queen has to do to get dressed!  No wonder the queen was apt to send people to the tower! 

My husband eventually got the other needle threaded with the other side of the lacing and laced me up, only to get the sides uneven.  Sigh.  He told me I was getting a bit "queenie" in my attitude!  I had to bite my tongue before I told him he should try standing around for an hour trying to get dressed!

Finally, I was laced up, a bit rumpled in hair style and spirit, but it was time to get the show on the road!  

The center is our curriculum.  To the right are some of the core books we read.  To the left are extra books the children had read.

Here are the required books that we read for the last several weeks.

Here are the children's major projects for the unit (which I kept simple due to the holidays and numerous contests they competed in).  Here are their Nature Journals and term papers on Leonardo da Vinci.

The queen and her royal subjects.

The food!  The children and I decided it would be a lot of fun to get creative with the food.  Since we studied about exploration of the New World, and Queen Elizabeth had tried to establish colonies in the New World, why not let her taste some of the food from the New World?  We realized some of this may not be accurate.  But in our research, exactly on what day were the Europeans brave enough to eat the tomato?  We just decided to have fun with this. 

I remained seated while everyone helped themselves.  My husband brought me a sample of everything.  I waited to eat until everyone had their food and was seated and eating...and stil alive!  LOL  My dad asked where my food taster was.  I told him that my royal subjects were my taste testers.  Since no one had keeled over, I figured it was safe to sample the food!  LOL  He got a good laugh over that! 

When I was presented with the food, I sort of stuck my nose up at it and asked, "What is this?  I've never seen food like this before."  My son answered, "My queen, this is a sample of food found in the New World.  Your kitchen staff has devised new recipes with these new foods."  I'd then ask questions about each item and the children would take turns telling me what it was and where it came from.

Then we talked about Leonardo da Vinci, based on their research on him.  Since he used to keep Nature Journals, they shared what they had been doing with theirs.

All of their pictures are of various angles of the back yard.  They shared how they learned more about detail by careful observation.  They also experimented with different artistic techniques such as perspective and light and shadow, just as the Renaissance artists did.

Then dd shared the artistic techniques Raphael used in "The School of Athens."  This helped us to understand the painting better.

Then ds shared how Titian used color in "The Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin".

After that, we talked about the Reformation and ended by singing, "A Mighty Fortress is our God" by Martin Luther.

Next we talked about Shakespeare.  DS recited from King Richard II.  (Posing for the camera, after having been interrupted by the camera and forgetting lines he knew by heart!) 

DD, who was dressed as Portia (which my husband kept spelling Porche) gave the famous "Quality of Mercy" speech from Merchant of Venice.  (Afterwards, my husband had her pose, which she wasn't sure how to do that.)  

 Then ds shared who he was dressed up as.  He was D'Artagnon from "The Three Musketeers." 

He then taught us what he had learned about fencing! "En garde!"

 The lunge...

Even Slipper Kitty got into the act. 

"Pussy cat, ***** cat,

Where have you been?"

"I've been to London

 to visit the Queen." 

"Pussy cat, ***** cat,

What did you there?"

"I frightened a little mouse

under her chair."

As Slipper walked under my chair, LOL, I caught her up for a picture!

Year 2 Unit 2 Celebration done!  Now for the crazy woman to plan for Year 2 Unit 3!  ;)