Project 240: "We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea"

This was a two week project, running from Monday June 27th to Sunday 10th of July, and was designed to coincide with a holiday by the sea. 

It's the second Arthur Ransome project the children have had (see Project 140: Arthur Ransome and the Big Six), and they are well-written, realistic wholesome adventures, that don't include outlandish scenarios or fantastical/magical elements. The only warning would be that they are quite big books!

There was also plenty of other educational activities on the trip, 

When the children got home they did a piece of writing from the perspective of them being accidentally at sea. 

Next Project: Seven Wonders

Project 142: Arthur Ransome and 'The Big Six'

At Solomon's suggestion we had Arthur Ransome's The Big Six as this week's project as they had enjoyed watching Swallows and Amazons and Coot Club the previous week.

The book itself was a hefty 500 pages, so Monica and Solomon were tasked with reading that on their own rather than trying to read it all as a family.

The Big Six

There were a number of quizzes in the back of the book, which they both did very well on (so we can be assured that they read it properly!) and we also got them to write book reviews using a template from Twinkl. One word of warning, however, while the quizzes in the Vintage Classics version were good, the book itself did have some language that would be considered unacceptable today.

As well as reading the book we also introduced some Ransome-esque activities from the Arthur Ransome Society website.

They made some semaphore flags, and practised sending messages to each other.

Semaphore activity

We bought a book on knots, and got them to learn a few of the basics, starting with the reef knot.

The reef knot

The children were also tasked with creating 'Hollywoods', which is what Ransome called the pictures he drew based on posed photographs he took.

Solomon and Monica's 'Hollywoods'

We finished the week by watching The Big Six on Amazon Prime, which we were surprised to see actually had the children's great-grandfather in as an extra!

Next week: Basketball.