Our study of the Celts

A friend asked me the other day what we are using for our history study of the Celts.  This is what I told her, with some embellishment and helpful links:

As we were finishing up the last topic (Romans) I gave K a copy of Horrible Histories book, Cut-Throat  Celts, which he devoured, as is his way. Reading these high-interest books with a lot of humor seems to "prime" him for a topic--he is the child that needs a "hook" to get him interested in a topic.  L is usually up for anything.
 
Since then we've been reading Celtic-related stories and pages out of our history encyclopedias etc. Right now we're working on the Eyewitness Classics King Arthur, which includes a lot of background information and is a lot more Celtic than many versions. Last week we read "Across a Dark and Wild Sea" by Don Brown, which is argueably not Celtic--it is about the Irish monks that maintained literacy after the fall of Rome-- but I'm not too worried about it because it was good story. All Don Brown's books are good, but most of them are more modern history, so I was happy to find this one that tells an older story.

We also read pages here and there out of Usborne Encyclopedia of World History and do some of the Usborne recommended links.  I think this week or next we'll read a little about bog bodies or watch a Nova special (this link to the Nova website has a lot of interesting interactives--my kids really seem to respond to true stories about archeology, even if they can be a little gruesome) and maybe read Finn MacCoul out of "Favorite Medieval Tales" by Osborne. I would like to find something engaging on Boudica but I think that's not in the cards this time.

I also try to remember once a week or so to find some hands-on thing that ties in. I often get ideas from one of the Hermes House kid's encyclopedias:  Life in the Ancient World and Children's Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Ancient World are favorites, but they have a lot of duplicated content.  The former includes a project on making Celtic shields based on the well-known Battersea Shield which looks like fun and a good fit to tie in what is known about Celts from archeology, Arthurian legend, and the kid's current love of battling each other--we have plenty of swords but more shields are needed around here!