St. Andrew’s Home School

During Spring Break we visited a living history museum, The American Village. We heard Patrick Henry give his famous Give me Liberty or give me Death speech. We met Eleanor Custus, George Washington’s granddaughter, and learn some neat history about how she and her little brother were raised by George and Martha and why. She taught us a dance that my children volunteered to learn.

We took a tour of a replica of Mount Vernon and the Oval Office. We saw the courthouse and the area in which the guilty were kept - stocks! Oh, I think I need some of those. Mwahahaha. The large field is home of the encampment and reenactment of battles.

We learned how to play a few fun games that have joined the ranks of our family games. Of course they all centered around placing bets (but pretzels and chips work well for that). Actually using poker chips or little silver coins with no real monetary value is just fine. One of our new favorite games is Morgan’s Revenge - a priate’s game.

Morgan’s Revenge uses some replica gold and silver medallions (or silver rings) and a small brass spinning top similar to a Dredel. The top has six sides each marked with one of these sets of letters:

• P1 - put one
• P2 - put two
• AP - all put [one]
• T1 - take one
• T2 - take two
• TA - take all

The game begins with each player having eight silver rings. Each player puts one ring/chip into the center of the table. The first player spins the top and which side lands face up the player or players must follow the lead of the markings. The player who spun the top must do as the top says - put one or put two in the pot in the middle of the table; take one, take two, or take all from the middle of the table. If the top lands with the AP facing up then all players put one ring in the pot. As a player runs out of playing pieces he is out of the game. The object of the game is to end up with all the silver rings/chips.