Striving For Simplicity: Medieval Study

Wow - it's been over 3 years since I did a "school" post! What?!?! Where has time gone??? I keep having links pop up on my Facebook memories and I love looking back and remembering these times, so I'm going to try and post occasionally this year - if for nothing else for me to look back!

So to catch everyone up (just in case anyone else does actually read these) Miss Priss is now in first grade; Ladybug is now 4 and I've added one that we're going to call Taz (you know-like Tasmanian devil) since he is all boy and goes through destroying whatever may be in his path! My oldest two and I participate in a Classical Conversations Community, which I can't say enough good things about! We just wrapped up a Medieval Study so here's a little recap on some things we did!

My kids LOVED this study - kings, queens, castles, knights, sword fights- what more could kids want? As always, we did ALOT of reading! I read aloud at least 30 minutes a day and have to admit it's my favorite 30 minutes of the day! We kicked off our study with Time Traveler, which is a book where you pretend to go back in time and visit with 4 different time periods. We, of course, went to the Medieval period and followed a baron through his castle, a hunting trip, the town, a feast, his children becoming a squire and knight, returning from the Crusades and more! We also read several books on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round table. Here are most of the books we read:

We also learned songs and history facts about Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, the Crusades, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard Lionheart, Europe, etc. (Thank you CC!) There were numerous castle buildings- most complete with keeps, moats and drawbridges.

We also read and discussed a lot about knights: the way they dressed, their high moral code, and how they became a knight. We even made our own family Coat of Arms which we used in our family presentation at Classical Conversations.

Ladybug and Taz also did several activities using the Medieval Pack by 3 Dinosaurs. Miss Priss and I read the Magic Treehouse Non-fiction book Knights and Castles and did some writing activities.

Finally, we took everything we'd learned about medieval customs, food, dress, entertainment, etc. and wrapped it all up with a medieval feast! The kids painted and decorated chalices (although after painting them, I'm not sure how safe they were to drink from-oops!). However, the girls loved blinging them all up and adding their names!

Of course we needed to dress the part. I had a dress I'd used for an old-fashion day at church and the girls had princess dresses. However, we didn't just happen to have any knight costumes laying around. So we took some plain t-shirts and added a cross and placed it over a gray shirt and pants. Voila - Knight Crusaders!

The girls help me set the table. We included candlesticks and wooden dishes. We ate as peasants on bread (called trenches) instead of actual plates. We did not use any silverware until our pudding and then only spoons. Our meal consisted of beef tips, potatoes, bread, cheese, fruit, and pudding. During that time, scraps were just thrown onto the floor and people spit in the floor, allowing the dogs to come and feast too. My children reminded me of this as we sat down-however, I drew the line with that!


Miss Priss enjoying some sparkling cranberry juice from her chalice.

Since Medieval feasts were usually followed by entertainment, we then listened to Greensleeves and watched this Youtube video on a Medieval dance. Of course, we had to try it ourselves! This was the girls' favorite part of the night!