Vol. I · Week 43
Seven lessons — one for each day — drawn from British history, the wider world, the turning season, and the calendar of feasts. Read them, teach from them, or print the week for the fridge.
Exemplar lesson · 11 July
UK HistoryOn 11 July 1859, the biggest bell in Britain rang out over London for the very first time. Sixteen white horses had pulled it through cheering crowds. Two months later it cracked — and the crack is still there.
A worked example showing the full nine-section workbook shape used across the almanac.
Open the exemplar →On 21 October 1805, a small British fleet met a much bigger French and Spanish one near a place in Spain called Cape Trafalgar. The British admiral was called Nelson, and he did something clever.
"England expects that every man will do his duty."
Try this
Draw the two lines of ships. Cut Nelson's line across them. Then learn the four short words everyone still remembers.
Ages 5–7
Open lesson →Robert Frost was an American poet. He wrote a short poem called 'October' that asks the morning to go slowly, so the leaves fall one by one.
"O hushed October morning mild, / Thy leaves have ripened to the fall."
Try this
Learn two lines by heart. Press one leaf. Come back to both in a week.
Ages 5–7
Open lesson →The Earth is leaning away from the sun. That is what autumn is: a lean. The days grow shorter and the harvest comes in.
"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, / Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun."
Try this
Track sunset for the week. Notice how many minutes earlier it slips each day.
Ages 5–7
Open lesson →On 24 October 1945, fifty-one countries sat down at one big table and agreed to talk to each other instead of fighting. That is how the United Nations began.
"We the peoples of the United Nations…"
Try this
Find a globe. Point to five countries. Talk about why sitting at a table together is harder than shouting from far away.
Ages 5–7
Open lesson →On 25 October 1415, King Henry V's small, tired English army beat a huge French army in a muddy field. Shakespeare wrote him a speech about it two hundred years later.
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers."
Try this
Learn three short phrases from the speech by heart. Try them standing on a chair, quietly.
Ages 5–7
Open lesson →In the 1760s, a few friends in Birmingham met once a month on the night of the full moon so they could ride home safely by its light. They talked about steam engines, plants, pots and gases — and quietly built the modern world.
"The world was all before them."
Try this
Draw four friends around a table under a big moon. Give each one a different thing they know about.
Ages 5–7
Open lesson →A British hedgerow in late October is a LARDER. It is packed with berries — haws, hips, sloes, and the very last blackberries. And some hedgerows are more than a thousand years old.
"A hedge between keeps friendship green."
Try this
Walk a nearby hedgerow. Count the different woody plants in thirty paces. That is Hooper's Rule.
Ages 5–7
Open lesson →