We've spent the last year and a half using Story of the World for history, we're in Vol. 2: The Middle Ages.  However, there's so much cool stuff in this period of history, and SotW skips through it so quickly...Ty begged to stay on some of it for longer, to go into a lot more detail.  Lapbooks, here we come!

He got really fascinated with the Celts and Anglo-Saxons, so we've been on that for a while.  We're about halfway through the Anglo-Saxons project pack (lapbook) from www.handsofachild.com, and he's loving it!  Where last year he would listen, but get bored quickly, he's now asking to read and research - and is able to do his mini-books and foldables pretty indepth.  He is now able to pick out the farm tools that came from their culture, as well as cultural foods and festivals, trade patterns, word derivations, and geography - and he's having a blast being able to do it.  We should be finishing up on it by the start of Winter Break (first week of December), and we're planning to start back up in January with the Middle Ages, the Norman Conquest, and the Renaissance - all from HOAC.  (We'll be doing some smaller ones in there too, that I'm working on putting together - the Byzantine Empire, Feudalism in Japan, and the African Kingdoms.)

I just finished my basic prep for the Middle Ages, and I'm excited to get started!  I actually want to do one of these myself, right along with him, because it looks like so much fun :-)  It's got great activities on Knights and the Code of Chivalry, the different types of castles and why/how they were built, what life was like for the commoners vs. the nobles, and major events of the time, like the Plague.  It's also got some great comparison activities on the three sections of the Middle Ages, and what major traits characterized them.  Timelines, very manageable (but still challenging) writing projects, and a great bibliography - I can't wait!  We're going to supplement with activities out of In the Days of Knights and Damsels...I have a feeling the whole house is going to be involved in this one!

By the time we finish this one, we should have our digital camera, and I'll put up pics - he's really getting into it!