When the boys were toddlers, Mike and I created train tables for their Thomas trains. We screwed the rails to a board, added a frame and legs, and then painted scenery all around the tracks.
I thought of those tables (we created three over the years) as we worked on our latest for-the-boys project. We call it “Wisdom Quest.” It is played like Trivial Pursuit, and we can play every week to review our facts.
The categories are: Bible, Catechism, Memorization, Poetry, History, Geography, Times and Dates, Science, Art.
This is our first game board. It is for this homeschool year, during which we are studying The Middle Ages. We are using Story of the World vol. 2 as a read-aloud for all four boys (and then they have materials at their individual levels to study). All the history questions on the board are from Story of the World vol. 2. The memory work, geography, times and dates, and art questions concern the Middle Ages lessons, too. Science questions are from this year’s Apologia Elementary studies in Botany and Zoology (represented on the game board by the forest and the sea).
We hope to make a game board for each of the four main historical eras as we study them. Next year we’ll make a board for the early Modern Era, including the first half of U.S. History. The year after that will be the Modern Era, including the second half of U.S. History. Then we’ll be back to a second cycle of Ancient History.
I had the vision and general design for the game, but Mike did 100% of the artwork. Cutting, rubber cementing, drawing, watercolor painting, calligraphy. Have a look:
The background scenes are printed from the internet; they are illustrations of famous events of the Middle Ages. I printed out pictures for the Hagia Sophia, Sinbad the Sailor, Robin Hood, The Capture of Constantinople, Joan of Arc, a Viking ship, a Samurai Warrior, Christopher Columbus, and the famous quote from King Arthur (“whoso pulleth this sword from the anvil is rightwise king born of England”). The photo in the middle is a castle in Scotland.
These icons are too small to see, but I found a picture and a Middle Ages quotation for each category.
Memory: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” Proverbs 25:1, King James Bible
Bible: “From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” II Timothy 3:15
Science: “Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity….even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.” Leonardo da Vinci
Art: “The true work of art is but a shadow of the Divine perfection.” Michelangelo
Catechism: “What is the primary purpose of man? The primary purpose of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
Geography: “All the world’s a stage, and the men and women merely players.” Shakespeare
Times and Dates: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time.” Shakespeare
Poetry: “No, I was not born under a rhyming planet.” Shakespeare
History: “Not satisfied with their own disgraceful barrenness, they permitted the fruit of other minds…to perish through insufferable neglect. Although they had nothing of their own to hand down to those who were to come after, they robbed posterity of its ancestral heritage.” Petrarch
We framed the game board in an acrylic poster frame. It hangs on the wall in the school room, and we just take it down and lay it on the table to play Wisdom Quest.
