John's 1st grade class took a field trip to the Lebanon Castle, which was pretty cool. This life-size, 20th Century, replica Medieval castle was the life-long project of a man who not only built the structure by himself, by hand, but also made every single one of the bricks by himself, by hand. The man who built the castle was extremely intelligent: his IQ was higher than that of Albert Einstein. He started working on his castle in his 20's, when he asked the love of his life to marry him, but she said 'no' and married another man. The man never dated again, and never married, only greived for the woman he had lost. I guess he needed something to get his mind off his sorrows, so he set-out on the project of building this castle....When the man was jilted, his love didn't cut him off; infact, she stayed in touch with him all her life. They remained good friends. When they were in their 80's, the woman's husband died. The castle builder asked his true love....again...if she would marry him. She turned him down once again, claiming she had 'had enough of married life.' Tragic.
Now that the man is dead, his castle is owned and kept-up by a group of "knights" who use it for tours, teaching people about medieval life. The kids learned that castles were not made for comfort, but for defense. For example, the narrow, circular staircases that wind up and down through the castle are an attempt to foil would-be attackers who break in. The skinny, narrow windows that you see were perfect for shooting arrows out of, but were hard to shoot arrows into.
(Below) John and his friend Aryan pose infront of a real-life metal coat suit of armor. Those were all over the castle.
Laney Sharp (below) was absolutely terrified in the dungeon. She was braver than some of the girls, though, who wouldn't even come down the stairs to see it!
After the tour of the castle, we went outside and were given a lesson in sword fighting. Miss Richardson, John's teacher, did a knock-out job! Then the kids were given "swords" made of pvc pipe and pool noodles, and were paired-up to joust.
Besides visiting the castle, the children also traveled to the Clermont Nursing Home that day to sing to the residents. They sang over 20 songs by heart, including motions, and did a SUPER job!
