Last Friday we FINALLY finished our New World Explorers unit. I know, it took us forever. And you are probably royally sick of reading about it. We really had fun with it, though. And my Explorer wall was very high impact. Family members would come over for haircuts and have to peek at the wall to see what was new.
The end of the unit mostly detailed pirates. What a good way to end the unit. I think all little boys are fascinated with pirates, and mine is no exception. We made some coin booty out of cardboard, glue and paint. And then we used the booty in board game that we made.
After cutting the two sizes of coins, we drew coin designs on them with glue. Then we let it dry and painted the smaller coins gold. They were the Doubloons. Then we painted the larger coins silver. They were Pieces of Eight. When we were done, we cut the coins to represent different coin amounts. When cut into pieces, Doubloons became Escudos, and Pieces of Eight became Reale. Rather than create many different coins for differing amounts, like we do now, they would just cut the coins into pieces to make change. Smart, I guess. As long as the coins are soft enough.
Our board game was really simple. You chose a character, either the Captain, the Pirate, the Sailor, or the Cook. Each character has a list of items they need to collect. You roll the die and move around the board, landing on items. If your character needs the item you land on, you buy it with your coins. The first person to obtain all items on their list is the winner. GB won the first game. It took us quite a while to become comfortable enough with making the change. So the beginning of the game was a lengthy learning process. But it was fun enough that we’ve played it several times now, and even brought it to the swim meet on Saturday.
Our next unit is exciting! We will be moving into the Colonial Period of American History. I went ahead and bought the cd from Homeschool in the Woods. And I plan to supplement that with Kris‘ fabulous book, Great Colonial American Projects You Can Build Yourself.
Our last unit, the Explorer unit, was supposed to take us 5 weeks, and ended up taking more like 10. I want to take a little breather and get a bit ahead in our curriculum. Then when GB is losing wind from the traditional stuff, I’ll whirl in and get him started on this. Gotta keep him on his toes. Well, he always walks on his toes anyway, but that’s another subject….LOL! Anyway, who knows how long we’ll spend on this one. I like taking my time and really delving into these units. This, for us, is the funnest part of homeschooling. No wait, the field trips are the funnest, and we should be able to do a lot for this unit, here in good ole Virginia. But units are definitely the second funnest. 
I love reading about your units. This one has looked like a lot of fun.
Hey, I was going to comment on your very cool looking board game, and then saw my name! I hope the colonial projects/reading are fun for you guys.
This board game and coins are AWESOME!
So cool! We are reading a Nancy Drew book and they found some doubloons. I was thinking, “I’d love to make some!” I did a quick google and didn’t find anything and I thought I’d look at your site and see if you’d made some. Cool!!!
I haven’t even finished reading your post. Just wanted to say “thanks!!!”
Walks on his toes, huh? So did I when I was little! Well, even when I was big, but not any more.
I’m looking forward to your Colonial studies and all we will learn from you. Thanks for always sharing so much! And, we didn’t get around to making the doubloons today, but we’ll try to early next week!