A "Monkish" Week

This week at St Barbara's Academy the girls are being introduced to the Middle Ages, monks and monasteries. They were intrigued by the vow of silence. We set the timer for 5 minutes and spoke not a word. This was very difficult for the giggle girls....although Grandma liked it just a little : ) Lily walked around with her hand clamped over her mouth holding back the giggles. Marina stood sentinel at the stove watching the 5 minutes count down. She indicated by fingers how much time we had left. During the silent time, Grandpa came home. He is usually accompanied by shouts of joy and hugs and kisses. The monks at St Barbara's Monastery were much too intent on fulfilling their vows for that! I quickly signed the letters m - o - n - k to him so he would understand.

The girls were interested that someone could communicate by signing so the next day I showed them the alphabet, how to sign their name and also say I love you in sign. Needless to say, there was a lot of signing going on that day.

At our temporary monastery, the 2 monks were busy learning how to illuminate manuscripts. While they learned the art of illumination, we listened to Gregorian chants, much to their delight!






Here is Lily trying her hand at the tedious job of adding art to a manuscript. First she copied Psalm 23 and then carefully added color and some gold highlights.



Here is the Happy Monk Lily with her finished project!
I am now quoting from her journal entry (corrected for spelling) "I am a monk in a monastery and they do not talk and they do not get married. They have fields and beehives and they copy books. They take care of sick people. I like monks because they take care of sick people and that's good they help people. And there are good people too who give money to the leader. Thank you God for making them."


Marina also worked very hard at printing Psalm 23 and adding color and gold highlights to her parchment manuscript. This was her art project in addition to a history lesson.


Monk Marina displays her completed work.


This is a quote from Marina's journal for that day. "A monk is someone who writes and prays but if they don't listen to their boss they'll be condemned and that means they will die. They also live in a monastery. So do you know that they didn't have a store? Well, they did not! They had a farm back then to grow food for the winter because they can't grow food in the winter. Seriously, they could not grow anything, not even carrots!"