V is for Viking (Blogging through the Alphabet)

Crashing through the waves on a longboat, men seeking adventure, or warriors charging into battle with axes raised – these are some of the images that might come to mind when hearing the term, "Viking." We often think of the various gods and goddesses of Norse mythology, too, as movies and television shows depict them in pop culture.

Vikings voyaged along the coasts of Western Europe and traveled as far as North America and to the Black Sea. They were great maritime warriors who were also great fighters on land. Historians aren't positive about why they started raiding other kingdoms and villages but it might have to do with their family structure and inheritance system. Only the eldest son would inherit from their father so younger sons needed to make their own way in the world. Going on adventures and conquests would be an excellent way for younger sons to gain treasure to set up their own household.

One of the earliest known raids occurred in 793 at the monastery in Lindisfarne. This monastery was a center of Christian learning off the Northumbrian coast and chroniclers write of the monks being either killed or taken away and of the looting of treasure by the Vikings.

During the 830s, the Viking raids increased and they visited numerous places and cities including: Antwerp, Paris, the coast of Spain, the coasts of the Black Sea, and Constantinople.

Keys to Viking Success 

Why were the Vikings so successful on their raids? Why didn't people just prepare for their arrival and fight back? The Vikings were able to concentrate all of their raiding forces at an unexpected point to launch their attack. For example, they could land wherever they wanted by merely grounding their vessels on the beach. 

The voyage from Denmark to England in a longboat would only take about two days. 

And even if they were repulsed, they could quickly relaunch because their longboats had a prow at each end. They did not need to turn their boats around for a rapid escape. 

The skills of their everyday life prepared the men for their raids. They didn't need any specialized training because sailing, warfare, hunting, and sports provided the means to learn how to be a good Viking warrior. Even the fact that they were living in dangerous times aided them in preparation. 

Establishment of Kingdoms 

Over time, the wintering camps of Vikings became permanent bases and they expanded their control and rule in other lands. For example, the Danes took control over Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia. By 911, they controlled Normandy. Eventually, they even held territory near Novgorod and Kiev. As they intermarried and became more settled, the Vikings raided less. Their armies still terrified other kingdoms (the Vikings were physically stronger and could wield larger weapons) but they did not embark on as many conquering raids. 

Odin's Warriors 

There was a special group of warriors who were wild and were said to owe allegiance to the one-eyed Norse god, Odin. These 'berserkers' were said to truly believe in the idea that a warrior should die heroically in battle. Even though historians debate their existence, we can find details about them in Norse literature. They fought wearing bear or wolf skin – no armor. Before battle they would enter a trance-like fury which would enable them to fight ferociously. Supposedly, they would growl and roar before charging into battle and were said to be immune to pain. 

Homeschooling and Learning about Vikings 

We have been using SchoolhouseTeachers.com this year for our teen and his homeschooling needs. One of the courses he has been taking is American Literature in Historical Context, which looks at literature from pre-colonization to post-modernism. One of the first works that he read was the Viking Tales by Jennie Hall. After reading several tales, our son completed a journal entry in which he examined the character traits of the Vikings.

American Literature in Historical Context is a 36-week text-based course for grades 9-12 designed by Melissa Williamson who has a degree in education in middle grades English and Social Studies. In order to truly understand American literature, students will study the works in conjunction with the cultural and historical events of the time. Personally, I think this is a great idea and this is why we choose this as one of the courses our teenage son is taking this homeschool year.

Resources and References 

Viking Tales by Jennie Hall

Homeschooling a High School Student: Biology with SchoolhouseTeachers.com

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Even though I used to be a high school history teacher, I was apprehensive about homeschooling our teen. This year we are homeschooling our high school-aged son for the first time. While I felt confident in my ability to share knowledge of history, literature, and some areas of science, I was concerned about meeting the needs of an entire rigorous high school curriculum.

Fortunately, our family has access to over 400 courses through our membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com. So I am relying mostly upon SchoolhouseTeachers.com to help me teach our teen. I was able to find more than enough courses for our teen to take during his first year of homeschooling, including General Biology by Core Academy.

About the Course 

General Biology by Core Academy is a general high school biology course designed for tenth grade. Divided into two semesters, it covers an introduction to science, human biology, ecology, zoology, botany, microbiology, cell biology, genetics, and origins. The course is taught from a Christian worldview.

The course is designed for four days a week over 32 weeks which is a perfect fit for our homeschool. While we aren't strictly following a four-day-a-week schedule, I like the ability to vary our teen's assignments so he is not working on all his subjects each and every day.

In general, each lesson or session has a video lesson with an outline to fill out and supplementary vocabulary for the lessons and units. Most sections contain a quiz and some reading assignments. Parents can choose from a variety of Christian textbooks as well as a free biology textbook that can be downloaded that is not from a Christian creationist worldview. I have also chosen to supplement the free textbook with a copy of a traditional public school textbook to provide an offline way for our teen to study biology.

The video sessions available for part of Unit 2.

So far our teen has worked through Unit 1 (An Introduction to Science) and several lessons in Unit 2 about the skeleton, muscles, and skin. He has taken several quizzes and one test. The course is very easy to organize because it comes with plans that organize the lessons by topic and session for the two semesters. I use this when creating our weekly lesson plan and assigning him work and scheduling the quizzes and tests.

What I Added to the Course

To supplement the unit on human biology and anatomy, I am also including diagrams for our teen to study and label. These were not included with the course since it is a general biology course and not solely on anatomy. By incorporating these different exercises I hope to provide our teen with additional ways to be successful with the subject matter.

We will also be adding additional activities that he can do with our two younger children that would be considered just fun things for him to do. This could be activities such as cutting out and correctly arranging a skeleton or labeling the parts of the body using a puzzle.

What Our Teen Likes About General Biology

One of our teen's favorite parts of the course is Dr. Todd C. Wood, the lesson designer. Dr. Wood is the president of Core Academy and professor of biochemistry. He is "funny at times and he makes things easy to understand," according to our 16-year-old.

Our teen spends about 20 to 30 minutes each day working on biology independently. Depending on whether or not he is taking one of the quizzes, tests, or completing a reading assignment he may spend an additional 20 to 30 minutes as needed.

So far the only thing our teen has found difficult is the formatting of the some of the outlines. He finds that the actual video presentation sometimes skips around and he had to "flip back to answer something else." However, when I asked him if he had any recommendations, he only commented that a better microphone would make it easier to understand.

I print out the fill-in outlines for our son to use during the videos.

Book Club: Book Review: Daniel: Man of God

Disclaimer: I received a PDF copy for free from the publisher in return for my honest opinion. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. For more information please see my Terms of Use and Disclosure Policy. Thank you.

Daniel: Man of God by Dwight L. Moody is an Aneko Press Christian Classic published in 2018. Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899) traveled an estimated 1 million miles, preached to more than 1 million people, and had a number of works published. Daniel: Man of God, a short book of only 7 chapters, is a personal invitation into the lives of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Nebuchadnezzar. While many people know the story of Daniel and the lions' den or of the fiery furnace, this book provides a deeper look into the entire time period in a very easy-to-read manner. It will also help modern Christians reflect upon certain circumstances – such as when Daniel and his friends refuse to eat food from the king.

Even though this book was first published in 1884, people today might still react the same way – "when in Rome, do as the Roman does" – how can Daniel expect to live according to his religion in a foreign land? Too many people would take the easy way out and this book provides a great reminder that devotion and love of the Lord is really important.

We are reminded again and again that God was with the Jews while they were in Babylon by Moody in Daniel: Man of God. An example is provided in Daniel – his faith was very strong. God is "able to deliver" the men from the extreme heat of the furnace but Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not claim that God would deliver them. In the furnace there were four men. Wonderful advice is provided by Moody – "dare to do right; dare to be true; dare to be honest" (30).

"God can take care of us when we pass through the fires." – D.L. Moody 

In addition to the more recognizable stories from the book of Daniel, Moody also looks at the time when Nebuchadnezzar goes mad but then regains his sanity and attains a new spirit. Just like men today, he was thinking and doing things as if his success was a result of his own power – not that of God's. We also read about Belshazzar and Darius.

Through the story of the lions' den, Moody reminds us that "the world will persecute a man if he attempts to live the life of a true Christian" (58) but Daniel was courageous and did not let vanity or warnings of persecution compromise his sense of love and duty to God.

"Character is worth more than money." – D.L. Moody

I really enjoyed reading Daniel: Man of God by Moody. In the past, I have found reading Dwight L. Moody a little laborious but this book was very difficult to put down – I enjoyed it that much. I would recommend it to those who enjoy reading Christian classics, to those individuals who wish to know more about the book of Daniel, or those interested in reading more from Dwight L. Moody.

The 2018 Aneko Press edition of Daniel: Man of God is available from Amazon, Aneko Press, and other booksellers. There are other updated classics available from Aneko Press including:
The Way to God, How to Study the Bible, and others.

Book Club: Mousetronaut

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Mousetronaut is a very enjoyable book written by Astronaut Mark Kelly and illustrated by C.F. Payne. The book tells a fictionalized account of a real mouse who traveled on a mission in space in 2001. The afterword of the book contains facts and details about the real mission in which 18 mice (who all stayed in their cage) journeyed into space.

There are so many great activities one could do with your children when reading Mousetronaut. From learning new vocabulary to creating a timeline, I will share some ideas with you.

Vocabulary 

Usually when we read a book for the first time we do not stop and discuss every new word unless there is a question. I prefer to leave the vocabulary work to a second or third reading. Perhaps you like to introduce the words before you read the story. Whatever your method, check out this vocabulary worksheet I created to accompany any book about space including Mousetronaut.

Timelines 

A fantastic way to teach and organize information is using timelines. There are a number of approaches you can take when using timelines with your children.

One of the ways our younger children use timelines is with index cards. I write out the facts on index cards with the dates and then we put them in order on the floor as we read them. You could even tape them onto a wall if you wish to leave the timeline up for several days or weeks to study and reference.

Check out my timeline resource which contains some of the information you might want to discuss regarding space travel.

Art Project

With our children being younger, they really enjoy creating crafts with the different books we read. For this one I decided to incorporate a painting project.

Materials 

• Paint
• Round object like marbles or small balls 
• Cardboard or plastic box 
• Paper 
• Construction paper 
• Markers or crayons 

Steps 

1. Gather all your materials. I pre-cut the space shuttle for our children. Our children decorated their shuttles looking at photographs of some real-life ones like the Endeavor or Discovery.

2. Choose your background paper. We decided upon darker colors for the night sky.

3. Place the paper inside the cardboard box (a small piece or two of tape on the back of the paper will help keep it in place).

4. Choose two or three colors of paint. Drip some paint onto the paper in the box.

5. Place the marbles or balls into the box and then tip the box back and forth so that they roll through the paint and onto the paper.

6. After the paint is dry, assemble your space shuttle and glue or tape onto your painted night sky.

Biographies 

There were over 300 men and women who traveled into space through the space shuttle program of NASA. Research one of those individuals to learn more about their lives and their journey to becoming an astronaut.

Here are just a few of their names:

• Neil Armstrong
• Buzz Aldrin 
• Mae C. Jemison
• John Glenn
• Sally Ride
• Christa McAuliffe
• Scott Kelly 
• Ronald McNair

If you complete or create any of these ideas, please share them with me! Be sure to tag #momsquesttoteach on Instagram so I can see your children's artwork.

Resources

NASA STEM Engagement (education site of NASA)

NASA Space Place

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Master of Macabre: Edgar Allan Poe and the Silver Screen

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For so many, Edgar Allan Poe's name conjures up images of haunted houses, forlorn young men yearning for lost loves, or animals that seek revenge. These images were partially reinforced by movies and films as writers, directors, and actors sought to cash in on the horror-film genre. Some of the most famous Edgar Allan Poe-related movies are the eight adaptations directed by Roger Corman with quite a few staring Vincent Price. Part of the reason why Roger Corman was drawn to Poe was the fact that he had enjoyed Poe "immensely as a youth." And let's not forget that there was a time when "Poe has a built in audience. He's read in every high school." Unfortunately for Poe, the stories as depicted on the Silver Screen are not quite true to his tales or poems.

There are many different movies and shorts based upon Poe from the reading of The Raven on The Simpsons (this was a favorite with the Park Rangers at the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site when I volunteered there during high school) to the 1986 television movie with George C. Scott – The Murders in the Rue Morgue.  Let's examine two different works, both from Roger Corman, to see how Poe's work has been displayed on screen.

The Raven 

The 1963 movie The Raven was shot in 15 days and billed as a straight horror picture starring several well-known horror actors including Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Boris Karloff. While Edgar Allan Poe only made $9.00 from the sale of his poem, this movie grossed $1.4 million. In general, one needs to watch The Raven for what it was – an adaptation meant as a comedy  – and not as one wants it to be. Yet one would never know from the trailer of the movie that it was a comedy.

There was a paperback novel tie-in, a comic book, and a promotional 33 rpm record of Peter Lorre reading selected stanzas of The Raven. It garnered mixed reviews. Variety wrote that "Poe might turn over in his grave" but that audiences will love it while Time wrote "children scream with terror while their parents scream with glee."

Behind the scenes, there were clashes between the actors and their methods of acting. Both Karloff and Price were trained as classical actors so the improvisation of Lorre annoyed Karloff at times. In general, though, the actors got along well and I think that shows in the movie.

In the movie, The Raven, Craven (Price) and Scarabus (Karloff) are two 16th-century rival sorcerers who eventually fight in a wizard's duel. Lenore, the love of Craven, was under the spell of Scarabus and everything seems to work out in the end.

The Fall of the House of Usher 

One of my favorite tales of Poe's is The Fall of the House of Usher due to the wonderful opening sentence. It invites the reader to learn more about stealthy servants, subterranean passages, and the changing of the narrator's childhood friends.

The House of Usher, released in 1960, was a critical and commercial success for Corman and was the first of his eight movie adaptations of Poe's works. Richard Matheson's screenplay has been described as the most faithful adaptation of the story. The movie further develops the family history of the Ushers and really brings forth the house as a monster. In some respects, one could say that this movie, of all of the many Poe adaptations, exploited Poe more tastefully.

Personally, I feel that the movie does evoke the feelings of the short story even to the closing sequence of the movie.

Years ago, I may have gotten very annoyed over poor adaptations of stories, poems, and books but now I just find that as an invitation to delve deeper into the author's work. While we may still discuss and debate adaptations of our favorite works, there is often room for both the printed word and the film adaptation in the world. What do you think? Are you okay with poor adaptations of favorite works?