Showing posts with label History and Geography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History and Geography. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

A Selection of Remembrance Day Media

Not having posted for a while (being reading break and having quite a lot of reading to do!  Four essays really gets you down…) I’ve decided to share some remembrance day poems that I enjoy.

Lest we forget.

 

A Wish


Maybe it is pointless
To wish for lasting peace
For all mankind to lay down arms
For all fighting to cease


I could despair of seeing
Peace throughout the land
No longer hearing talk of war
Blood mixed with desert sand


We do not have the tolerance
For cultures not our own
Seeds fly on an ill wind
From beds where they are sown


Hope lies in a child's heart
Not yet turned to stone
A mind free of prejudice
A child not alone


If all children of the world
Held each others hand
They could do what we could not
Make a Brotherhood of Man.

Maxine Kendall

 

 

Legion Legacies Website : http://www.legionlegacies.org/content/education

 

 

2005 Year of the Veteran Poster Series

  

 

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Expedition Africa

Link Here

Reminisant of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series, this game is super fun and every time you play it it’s going to be different!Egypt001

Game play!  The rules of the game are that you roll the dice (leaving it up to chance!) and picking which dice you want to keep.  Kind of like Yatzee.  You can keep your weapons, get a new porter, more food, or medicine or you can move however many kilometres (miles?  I don’t remember..)

Egypt002

A screenshot of the game board.  Look at all the miles I’m chocking up!  Look at the porters and food! Look at the lack of medicine.  I’m pretty sure the next roll I lost three porters and the roll after that I was down to one crate of food.  This is a high stake game.  Most definitely a high stake game.

Egypt003

Look at my roll!  So very artsy!  So very precarious.  Only 30 miles (kilometres?) and four crates of food (which as you can see I DESPERATELY NEEDED).  But don’t worry, I still had two more rolls.

Egypt004

This is the choose your own adventure part.  Depending on the resources you’ve collected when you hit different checkpoints you get to chose how you’re going to pick your next step!  Every game is different!

Egypt005

Ahh… the end of the game.  I made it to the Mpanda Foothills!  Safe and sound and I only lost … how many porters?

EXPEDITION AFRICA – LINK HERE

Recommended Age: Grade Six and above

Difficulty Level:

One

Fun Factor:

Trois

With Love

Miss B

Monday, October 19, 2009

Egyptian Mummy Maker

The Royal London Museum had many piece on tour to different museums and it chronicled different cultures throughout the decades beginning with Early Man, working it’s way through the Egyptian period to the rise and fall of the Holy Roman Empire all the way to the Pacific cultures and Asia.  Concluding the exhibit was “where we are today” with pictures of popular culture and artifacts from today. 

This game instantly reminds me of when I went to the museum in the summer.  We were in line (the Math Wiz and I) and in front of us was this little girl and her mom.  She was talking away about what they were going to see and how excited she was about living in Victoria.  We enter the museum and she makes a beeline straight for the Egypt part of the exhibit. 

I kind of meandered my way through Early Man, not particularly liking the early bits of world history.  The replica of the Rosetta stone was neat… but that’s beside the point.  This little girl hopped right on up to this sarcophagus and starts looking at it.  The museum volunteer starts asking her a lot of questions.  Like, “Who do you think this coffin belongs to?”

“Just by looking at the SARCOPHAGUS you can tell it’s someone royal because of the bird that’s on it and how it’s made.  You can see the gold parts along the top and …”

This little girl rocked.  And I mean really rocked.  The museum volunteer was correcting her along the way “We were told by the London museum that it’s not a royal person, but it was definitely someone wealthy.”

The mom stood there smiling and then gave this girl a big hug.  “She’s my little Egyptologist.  Sometimes I think she knows more than the museum curators.”

This mom rocked.

Either way, the entire situation pretty much rocked.

On with the game.

LINK HERE

ScreenShot001

It’s an incredibly informative game. So packed full of information, that if I didn’t know what a lot of the terms were I might be a bit lost.  This game is probably for someone a little more Egypt inclined than your average school child, but in the big picture you can learn a LOT in a short time.  The game talks a lot about the cultural importance of Egyptian mummy-making, and why they did each individual step.

Egypt001

You are an assistant to the chief embalmer in Egypt.  You make all the decisions toward a particular person’s mummy.  Get it wrong, and the person will not  be admitted to the afterlife and is doomed to be in purgatory not being alive and not being dead.  There’s quite a lot of weight on your shoulders!

 

Egypt004

There is no holding back in this game for sure.  It details how they extracted the brain and which tool is used.

 

 

 

Egypt005

Very graphic.  All with attributes of Ancient Egyptian art too.  That is a brain pouring into a bowl. 

 

 

 

Egypt006

Picking which organs should be left in the body prior to mummification.

 

 

 

 

 

Egypt010

Learning Egyptian hieroglyphics.  For something fun, but relatable to this topic, click here: Hieroglyphic Alphabet Translator Make your own name into hieroglyphics!

 

 

Miss B had fun with this one!

 

MUMMY MAKER GAME – CLICK  HERE!

Recommended Age: Grades 3-7

Difficulty:

Two

Fun Factor:

Deux

 

Related Links:

Woodlands Jr. School in the UK – Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt for Kids

Miss B

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Mind Your Manners!

 

Link Here

Instructions Victorian Manners

The words of Queen Victoria, “We are not amused” are the wrong ones to use when discussing McCord Museum’s online role-playing game.  It’s fun graphics and cute voices are entertaining as you click your way, maneuvering the etiquette of the Victorian era.  All the character’s voices sound like Beaker from the Muppets.  Somewhat high pitched… “Mi Mi Mi Mi Mi” for the ladies, and lower… “Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah” for the gentlemen.

 

 

 

A Fancy Ball

 

You start off by picking a character (I picked the girl, just because I am one) and then clicking on different scenarios on a map.  This particular one is of going to the ball.  You’re given four pictures of different attire that you may or may not wear.  You then must pick which is the most appropriate for the particular occasion.  Lucky me, I picked right!

 

 

 

Questions

Then, you’re given different scenarios.  Many of the ones I got were about acting like a proper lady in the presence of a gentleman, train etiquette and proper table manners as a hostess.  It’s reminiscent of the “Choose your own Adventure” books I read as a kid.  Except, instead of having a different ending for each option, there’s only one right answer.  and if you get it wrong…

 

 

 

 

Cannonball!

Something funny happens!  In this frame, my character is getting cannonballed for not picking the right attire to a dinner party.  I got run over by a horse one time when I picked the wrong answer, and another time when I made a social faux pas my virtual game friends kept saying what sounded like “Oh my gosh… oh my GAWSH” while my character spoke her her Beaker-esque voice.  It’s all quite charming.

 

 

 

Picture of politeness

Finally, if you pass all the tests with the acceptable amount of points (you get points for correct answers, and you lose points for incorrect ones) you’re graded.  Today, I was a “picture of politeness.”  How lucky!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is quite possibly one of my most favourite games I’ve found so far, and I’m glad to start off with it.  The graphics are simple and fun, it’s easy to navigate and can be used as a learning tool with children between the ages of 11 and 16.  However, I found it really fun and played it quite a few times before stopping and saying “No Miss B.  You must go to sleep!” so maybe that cap number is inappropriate. 

Although not difficult to navigate, a couple of the questions were a bit tricky, so be careful when you answer them!  You might get run over by a horse and buggy!

 

Mind Your Manners – Game Link

 

Recommended Age: 11-16 or All Ages (with maybe some help from a Big Kid)

Difficulty:

Two

Fun Factor:

 Trois

I didn’t want to give a fun factor of 4… although this may change later on.  It’s a pretty awesome game.

 

Happy Learning!

Miss B