The Lighting of a Fire!: Part Thirty-nine--Once Upon a Time: Sons and Daughters of a King 2006-2007 part 4

THIS ROYAL THRONE OF KINGS, THIS SCEPTERED ISLE: English history plays

Our opening day of England and the English plays began on Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras in the U.S. Shrove is the past tense of "shrive", to make confession of sins. This is the day to rid the home of milk, butter and eggs in preparation for Lent.

The English began making crêpe type pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, and now call it Pancake Day. The tradition of the pancake races is said to have originated when a woman from Olney was so busy making her pancakes that when she heard the church bells ringing for services she ran straight to the church, apron-clad and holding her frying pan and pancake.

We had our own Pancake Day celebration with key points and timed races.

I think the kids had to flip the pancakes at least once while they raced.

iHop has free pancakes on Pancake Day, and Liberal, Kansas competes with the English town of Olney to see which town can race the fastest. Each runner is kerchiefed, aproned, and holds a frying pan of course! We had fun learning about this tradition!

The next day we learned some key points and attended the Ash Wednesday mass at the St. Joan of Arc church. I hadn't known that the palm leaves from the previous Easter were burned and the ashed saved for Ash Wednesday.

Our next field trip was to experience Shakespearience.

The theater was filled with high school students experiencing synopsis of scenes

from five Shakespeare plays. There was a lot of humor and laughter!

The high school fencing coach lived across the street from us, and we had the opportunity to take some fencing lessons. First we met together for an English feast!

A few years previous to this I attended a stake Relief Society event where the hall was hung with these banners. I borrowed them for this event and for our open house, and they told me to keep them. They have been put to good use for many years, and I still own them.

We set up three long tables in a horseshoe pattern, and Polly brought pewter dishes.

We taught the students about renaissance English feasts, and they enjoyed the customs and food,

and visiting with friends.

Afterwards the students shared some of their projects.

Giselle shared the history and the strategy of the game, Nine Men's Morris.

Autumn shared her project on the English royalty. She also performed a funny monologue with Haley. Haley spoke the Shakespeare, and Autumn gave the Valley Girl interpretation.

It was entertaining!

After our feast and presentations we all drove to the high school for our fencing lessons.

Giselle and Autumn face off!

This was another great day!

Another activity I found while on my January search was Scottish Dancing. I don't know how I found that all the way in Palmdale. To kick off our study of Macbeth, Haley came for a Scottish dinner before we drove an hour to the dancing. I didn't know how many times we would attend, but I wanted this first night to be a celebration.

Jasmyn attended on our first night of dancing.

We attended the Scottish dance classes a few times, and the last class was a Ceilidh -- a Scottish dance party. Chase, Autumn, Giselle and I dressed up for it. We went to the thrift store to find plaid and did our best to be Scottish! Chase is wearing a plaid, flannel sheet.

When Chase attended a previous class, a gentleman told him he was probably the size of a kilt that he owned. He would bring for Chase to wear at the party. Here he is, sporting his real Scottish kilt. Chase was confident enough to wear this, and dance with young and old.

This was a great adventure, and fun way to celebrate our study of Macbeth.

Our school year was filled with all kinds of thespian activity:

performing dialogues, monologues, and other scenes...

and attending and performing in plays. Autumn got the part she auditioned for in High School Musical, Sharpay. She was great, and wrote a paper all about auditioning for a part. She and I also attended a Los Angeles performance of Wicked.

We met and learned from several actors from acting companies,

including these from the Redlands Shakespeare Festival.

More Research Projects

Chase works on his genealogy/history of the the English, Scottish and French royalty

It is tricky!

This was the perfect year for memorizing the Kings and Queens of Britain poem. This was a poem of the month, "William the Conqueror long did reign..."

Giselle wanted a dress for the renaissance faire and open house. She never really had a good dress to wear, so she designed and sewed her dress with my help.

Putting grommets in her dress so it can be laced up.

Giselle made an underdress of silky material with full sleeves. The outer dress with attached sleeves and lacing up the back. She made a headdress to match.

It could be worn less formally without the sleeves and headdress.

Autumn also wanted a new dress, but she didn't need my help.

She put boning in her dress, and I have still never done that! I was impressed!

Autumn preferred the peasant style of dress, complete with outer hanging pocket and tankard.

We braved the Renaissance Pleasure Faire.

It can be a little bawdy at times, but this day it was pretty mild.

Chase, Autumn, Giselle and I went. We took Haley too. Chase didn't dress up this time.

Chase had a fun weapons experience.

Meeting Elizabeth I was the highlight of the day.

I think Giselle got this weaving device from the faire.

Our last group field trip was a two-part experience. One of the actors from Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum came to Suzanne's home to help us get ready for our visit. He taught us about The Tempest in our preparation for it's performance.

During our actual visit the students did a lot of activities. Then Queen Elizabeth I came to the stage. Autumn was called to the stage and dialogued with the queen.

Then we watched the play. After this performance, The Tempest was Giselle's favorite play.

This event was a highlight of the year.

The Redlands Shakespeare Festival was performing two plays that spring. The kids were not interested in seeing Julius Caesar, so Jasmyn and I went on a little date to watch that first.

Then I took Chase, Autumn, and Giselle to see A Midsummer Night's Dream.

This became a family tradition that we attended for many years. The tradition included stopping by Trader Joe's for treats and arriving early to ensure good seats.

The girls had some projects they wanted to complete before the year ended, and we had preparations for our open house as well. Giselle really wanted to make her own book of Shakespeare's sonnets. This project involved learning a graphics program...