The Market Place

We have ten shops in the marketplace. The families visit two each night. Of course everybody's favorite is the bakery, because we smell those whole-wheat rolls cooking throughout the evening, and at the end of VBS each family gathers around their table lamp and eats the bread and drinks cold water drawn from our marketplace well. We also have a carpenter's shop where the children learn to use hand tools and stain a cross, a jewelry shop for making bullas with a hidden symbol inside. There is a scribe who teaches them to write in Greek, a grammaticus school for learning Roman numerals and how to use the abacus. (Is the plural abacci?)They make leather wrist bands in the leather shop, paint a top in the toy shop, make mosaic tiles in the clay shop, and sample simple Roman-type foods in the food market. In the weapons shop they explore a miniature Roman fort and see the might of the Roman army, observing little models of actual siege weapons. Every evening there is also a skit in the market place. Tonight a bread thief was almost arrested, but the owner refused to press charges and forgave him. Here are a few pictures.