Here are some photos from the days we studied Kings and Queens. This was a unit study actually done KONOS style in obedience, where we look at what it was like to live at the times when the king ruled and learned about some of the things that make a king wise and good maybe even cruel and demanding. We looked also at what it means to serve a king, the various historical roles... historical kings and queens and how people had to obey the kings commands. We also looked a bit into.. the consequences of disobedience and doing things outside of the law. We read about Robin Hood and discussed the ethics of that. I enjoyed it as much as the kids did.
Our study even included a trip to the local renaissance fair, (pictured below) something orchestrated not by me, but by by what some would call happenstance or even chance. Me? I believe it was orchestrated by God.
Another concept learned about was about God's kingdom and about how we are to be wearing the "full armor of God."
(see: Ephesians Chapter 6.. verses 10-18)
We learned about how there are various roles in serving in His kingdom, and how we are to always be ready to serve our King... King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
What does it mean to have a servants heart?
On a side note...
One book I read and loved was Barbara Mains' book Tales of the Kingdom. This is a book filled with allegorical stories that I thought were simply fun to read and yet they had a deeper meaning.It is about a city where an evil Enchanter has bewitched all the people who prefer darkness to the light, and so they sleep during the day and work at night. But the King's men and women are working throughout the city rescuing the poor and needy and bringing them to a place called the Great Park.
Throughout the story, (which has sequels of course, ) the Enchanter's men proclaim "There is no such thing as a King", but the people of the great park believe differently for they have met him, know of his love and serve him.
I thought that the book had a great lesson in these things and in how "seeing" is not always "believing," or rather that the reality of who people are and their value or worth cannot be determined by what is seen. I have since discovered that there was some controversy over the Mains, but I do not remember what it was. I just know I enjoyed these books as we went through our study on Kings and Queens and learned about knights and castles and chivalry.
But then there is KONOS... We did so much with KONOS being the foundational concept over the years.
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I see KONOS has sample lesson you can check out on line. If this is something of interest to you see: KONOS Obedience- sample. <---If this link doesn't work check out the KONOS website. It has been updated since my days of using it as a corriculum.
Some people find KONOS intimidating, but don't let it intimidate you. just have fun and learn as you go. Use the ideas and then apply them to what you want to do with your family. How can you go wrong?
Note also that we did not make our own costumes, although we did make parts. We mostly just ramaged around at thrift stores, dress up boxes and closets. For books, I found a lot of them, and if not the same... I found similar books, at the library. I can also say I had a lot of help from the librian.
Konos for me was a great outline of learning projects, lots of ideas for making school interesting. I think those ladies have great lists of resources and ideas and I know it was enough to get us moving into what we needed to learn and discovering new things that were interesting to us, some things that t we didn't even know was interesting until we delved into it. KONOS was also inspiration to write reports, learn vocabulary and find out more about history we never knew or thought about before.
I recommend KONOS, mostly because it related everything we learned in an ordinary way to the incredible wisdom that comes from God in his Word. For example, we gladly say, and we even believe as Christians that "Jesus is King;" They even posted on the corss when he was crucified that this Jesus claimed to be the King of the Jews...
But what, pray thee, do tell; What is a "king?"Do we even know? Do we even understand?
Here is the USA we have a president, and this is quite different from a KING or a CZAR. If you ask me, I think that it is very good to learn the difference and understand how it is that Jesus is a wise and faithful ruler.. concerned about the welfare of his subjects, caring for them as if they were his very own.
