Cum lemons dat vitam, facis lemonade

As many of you know, my FFT adventure was carefully crafted to support our school's 4th/ 5th grade curriculum loop. But then we made some staffing changes and I'll be teaching 6th grade next year. How do I reconcile the anthropology of Neanderthals with Western Civ? Well...I don't really know. During my research, however, I did discover Roman ruins within an hour of both of my FFT destinations. Would this be cheating? I mean, after all, I didn't write a grant to research the far flung colonies of Roman Gaul and Germania, I wanted to learn about early human art and artifact and how Neanderthals and Cro-magnon humans coexisted 40,000 years ago.

I got over the guilt pretty quickly. While we are not entirely sure what sixth grade will be exploring next year, we do think Rome will figure into it somehow. To that end, I am making forays to Colonia Ulpia Traiana near Xanten, Germany and Vesunna, in present day Perigueux, France. Both sites are well documented and the German site has what looks to be an amazing recreated Roman City (or at least part of one). So, instead of weeping over the lemons fate has delivered, I'm working hard to make lemonade Caesar himself would be proud to drink. As for the troglodyte life I am really being sent to research, I am  happy to report that all of the tours and museums and experts are lined up and I even figured out how to land myself a little flint-knapping work in France. Well, at least that's what I hope I signed up for. In about 15 days we'll know for sure!