Co-op in Review: August 13, 2015

This week, our Tapestry classes learned all about the culture, geography and religion of the Byzantine Empire, or what was formerly the Eastern Roman Empire.  They also learned about monasticism in western Europe, the Great Schism--a break in the Christian Church between the Catholic church under the Pope in Rome and the Eastern Orthodox church based in Constantinople.  The Rhetoric class discussed these issues and more, in-depth.  They also previewed and got their assignments for their upcoming "Dateline" news production on the Crusades.  The Dialectic class continued to make great progress on their castle project.  Instead of making individual castles, they decided to make a gigantic "class" castle by joining all of their parts together.  Great teamwork, class!  The Upper Grammar kids made gorgeous stained glass art, like the windows in the great cathedrals of the time.  They also practiced illuminated manuscript, like the monks would have used when hand copying books.  The Lower Grammar class learned about a Byzantine art form--the mosaic.  They then made fabulous mosaics out of little pieces of paper.  They turned out great!  Our Five in a Row class read the book, "Caedmon's Song".   The book tells the story of the first known Anglo poet, Caedmon, a cow herder, and how he struggles to even write a song!  The kids made adorable cow faces.  Mooooo!