Adventures in Narnia

Can’t quite believe I have abandoned this blog quite as much as I have!

Anyway, wrapping up The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe:
I know that at least the girls have listened to the audiobook a couple more times. Josiah’s watched the animated film a few more times too - so they are all very familiar with the story. Plus I’ve heard them shouting out that they’ve heard vocab words from some of the chapters so some of that must have gone in!

We made some clay statues of the figures mentioned in the Witch’s castle - didn’t ever get as far as making the castle as Christmas sort of overtook us - and the statues didn’t survive past Christmas, either!

We all saw the new film at the cinema and generally enjoyed it.

I had wanted to get the children to think about the comparisons between Aslan’s death/coming back to life and Jesus’s death/resurrection, but never quite got round to that either, and I sort of feel that the moment has passed by so for now I don’t want to make a big deal of it - perhaps it will come up in conversation another time.

Having got really behind with our reading (*and* blogging - there was one chapter more that I read myself and didn’t get round to blogging about!), and then having a sore throat and not even being able to face the prospect of reading out loud, we bought an audiobook of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

This weekend we had a fair bit of travelling to do, so we listened to the whole lot, on different legs of the journey. I think the children probably enjoyed it *more* this way, so I don’t regret it for a minute!

Now I think I will just pull the best activities for the study guide and we’ll just do them as and when we feel like it.

Took the book with us in the car today on the way up to Dartmoor, and read two chapters on the way there, then another one on the way back. Huge commitment on my part as this made me feel awful, but the children all wanted me to read it, and they were a captive audience, for once, so it was a worthwhile thing to do. Audiobooks of the next few stories are a very attractive prospect, I must say!

Josiah has watched the animated video of LWW a couple of times recently, and he seemed most surprised to hear the same story from the book as in the video, it was quite funny

Chapter Five - Back on this side of the door

Vocab words:
• snigger
• row (as in an argument)
• disposal

I love this chapter - the Professor just turns the children’s world upside down, it’s great I asked the children the ‘critical thinking’ question from the study guide: why do you think C S Lewis keeps repeating that you should never shut yourself in the wardrobe? They looked at me as if I were completely dense, and said ‘doh, because you might not be able to get out’. Which left me wondering if there was some deeper significance

Chapter Six - Into the Forest

Vocab words:
• camphor
• fraternise
• prig
• chatelaine

Forgot the dictionary so had to bluff ‘chatelaine’, I couldn’t manage to define it particularly accurately . Keep meaning to buy some mothballs so that the kids know what they smell like, but probably won’t get round to it, knowing me!

Activities from the study guide included a field trip to go ‘birding’, so we decided to look out for birds while on Dartmoor. Most of them had more sense than us, and weren’t up there. Another suggestion was to make bird feed things for the garden; we usually have bird feeders up over the winter so can tick that one. The critical thinking question for this chapter was about how the Witch found out that Mr Tumnus had let Lucy go, and about whether it would be safe to judge another world by what is normal in our world. Both seemed relatively easy to answer questions, in fact, not much critical thinking required, but there we go!

Chapter Seven - A Day with the Beavers

Vocab words:
• gumboots
• oilcloth
• festoon

Planning to have trout & potatoes for dinner tomorrow, and a Mrs Beaver special Marmalade Roll for dessert. Hopefully the children won’t like it

We read the next couple of chapters today. Josiah sat next to me, and read Edmund’s lines, so that kept him occupied, and we’d bought some real Turkish Delight to try, so that kept them all happy.

Vocab words:
• Chapter 3 - spiteful, sulk, gilded
• Chapter 4 - courtier, naiad, dryad

After chapter 3 we discussed some of the activity questions: Anna did ‘what would your answer be if the Witch asked you “what are you?” ‘. Abbie thought about whether she would believe her sister if presented with the story that Lucy told her brothers and sister, and what proof she would need in order to believe it.

The girls are going to be making Turkish Delight again at Friday Fish tomorrow, too. I’m happy now, as we’re just ahead of the Friday Fish schedule for sessions, which was where I wanted to be. It will be a much more leisurely pace between now and Christmas, as I only want to finish this book before then, not worry about starting any more until the New Year.

We read the first couple of chapters of the book today. This catches us up to the part the girls ‘did’ at their kids’ club. I’d like to get ahead, ideally, but not sure if we will. It seems easier to read as even Joe has a bit of a grip on the story already, he managed to concentrate better today, and the girls just got on with it as usual.

Vocab words:
• Chapter 1 - ‘wireless’. Interesting how the meaning of that has changed recently!
• Chapter 2 - ‘inquisitive’, which I was surprised that Anna couldn’t define, although I think she knew the meaning of it really.

Activities from the study guide that we did briefly:
• Discussed which war the story is set in. The girls both knew that it was WWII but weren’t sure when exactly that was. The concept of evacuation is fairly familiar as a theme from other children’s stories, and also from having watched the news over the past few weeks, with the evacuations due to hurricanes in America.
• Talked about why Mr Tumnus called Lucy a ‘Daughter of Eve’, and why boys would be called ‘Sons of Adam’ by the same terminology. I’m happy to present this as a natural progression from Biblical creation, which is the main ‘beginning of the world’ theory we use in this family (well, I do!) … and I didn’t want to get into discussion on *that* issue this early in the morning!
• Discussed what causes Winter. Appallingly shocked that none of my children seemed to have a clue what makes the Seasons, will have to find an appropriate book or something! I know Anna *did* know this, I remember demonstrating it to her with the globe … head like a sieve, that girl
• Talked about whether Lucy was wise to go off with the first Faun she met in a strange magical land. The kids unanimously decided that she was silly, as the Faun was a stranger and Lucy didn’t know what he was like. Wonder where they’ve picked up that stranger-danger stuff, as I’ve *never* talked about it with them. Also, we thought about what might have happened if Mr Tumnus had turned Lucy over to the White Witch?
• Decided to have a ‘Mr Tumnus’s tea’ tonight - actually, we decided that before I read it in the study guide! So a very healthy boiled egg, sardines on toast, buttered toast, honey on toast, and sugar topped cake is on the menu this evening

My friend Maria came round last night and we tested a couple of turkish delight recipes, as she is going to make turkish delight with the kids’ club in a couple of weeks. Found a definite winner in terms of ease of making and best result - this recipe from the C S Lewis Website. We didn’t use the nuts though. It didn’t *quite* set hard enough to slice into cubes, but hard enough to, for example, roll into truffle sized balls and then powder with icing sugar. Might have gone harder in the fridge overnight, I suppose, I’ll have to test it again this morning. Also, I personally would use more rosewater than given in the recipe, double, perhaps.

As below. I reserve the right to add more in due course if things don’t fit neatly into one of these