Let's travel back... many, many...many years ago, to Rome. To the time of Roman foot soldiers. To the time of beautifully hand crafted armour, created by true artisans. To the time....... of the Roman Shield.
Or let's not. Let's just pretend we all remember the myriad of details we learned about these things, and continue on. Because over the last week, I've discovered that what little information I've retained about that era is not nearly as memorable as various scenes from the movie "300" or "Gladiator". And even those are not as powerful a tool for today's teenager learning about such matters as Google Images has proven to be. Is anyone else a bit envious that we didn't have that when we were doing research for school assignments?
Jock was doing a research project for his English class on a Roman shield. And yes, I know. I have a hard time understanding what a Roman shield has to do with English, but since it was a project he could get excited about, I'm not questioning it. (I do see a pattern, though. Last year in Freshman English, he had to create a totem. I might show that to you one of these days.) He remembered that Coach works at a sheet metal factory, and had the brilliant idea of asking his father to help him. And Coach being Coach, jumped at the chance to help. Really, I think it might have been more at the chance to use the welding tools and the metal grinder thingy, but what do I know? I'm just the mom. So Coach built the body of the shield, and got to play with the welding stuff and the metal grinder thingy. The shield measures about 55" high, and about 32" wide. I wish I had a picture of the thing when it first came home,I don't. So what you get is a shot of what it looked like after the base shield color had been decided upon and applied.
From there, the design was researched, stencils were created, and artwork painted on. This process took a few days, but I think it was totally worth it.
Now, I'm not sure when we'll ever be called upon to defend the house using this, but Jock is ready!
*No, this isn't one of my better PSF offerings. Yes, I am fully aware of that fact. However, this shield was just too cool not to share. Deal with it.
Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek
14 comments:
This is very neat. Love it.
That is HUGE. Very cool! How on earth did Romamns fight using those things?
That is awesome! You should be proud adn want to share it!!
I think this is a great PSF! Very nice work on the shield!! Have a great weekend!
WAAAAAAY too cool not to share! That's awesome!! If that project ever comes my kids' way I'm pretty sure we'll be using cardboard and crayons. You guys ROCK!!
He SOOO better have gotten an A!
yep, at our house it would be all about the cardboard and markers :)
Being a HUGE history buff, I think that shield is great!
And I agree, if it keeps them interested, I'm all for it.
Great job!
You're right, it's a bit easy for the kids to research. They sit down, type a few words, and bam! There's all the info they need. But, they still have to put it into their own words just like we did. The computer does save us multiple trips to the library. And printing the information instead of photocopying it is easy. So I guess there's a give and take. Either way they're learning.
Great shield! I'm with the cardboard and crayon crowd. Maybe some creative foam piecing, but that's it. Good job guys!
You know the history major in me is trying to figure out where Sparta came from - as it's Greece....but I'll forgive you - this once.
I love it. Amazing. As a teacher, that ab-so-lute-ly deserves an A+.
That's pretty cool - huge, but cool! :)
awesome! way cool shield! awesome project too!
What on earth are you going to do with that thing? Place it with all the other special "treasures?". That is pretty cool though.
It's so cool. And huge! A great story in my book.
That is one HUGE and kick ass shield!
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