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Welcome to our “Time Travelling Adventures – A Medieval History Week” – an at home week filled with days of relaxed learning and fun activities all themed to the wondrous medieval era! Young knights, squires, princes, and princesses will hardly realize their learning all about history as they embark on a journey of bringing the Middle Ages to life!
For this day, we turned our attention to daily life! Read on to check out a fun filled day of learning, reading, crafts, and activities all on what life was like during the middle ages!
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 Our relaxed & learning fun day kicks off with an introduction to the day’s theme. Then, we move onto videos and themed activities (reading, writing – or story telling – time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments). Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
INTRO
After learning all about castles and knights, one naturally starts to wonder what everyone did on a day to day basis during the middle ages! While there are multiple time periods and different classes, all with different answers to those questions, we focused a bit more on food and crafts (as in crafts of the middle ages).
If you’re looking for some more quick facts, check out these great sites:
- Medieval Food & Cooking by Castles and Manor Houses
- 25 Things from Everyday Life in the Middle Ages by Medievalists.net
- Crafts in the Middle Ages by The Finer Times
WHAT TO WATCH
We find that mixing in a short video themed to our day is a great way to add some learning fun! We try to pick informative videos OR mix in a cartoon favorite (where they don’t even realize they’re learning). Below are some of the videos we picked from for the day:
- Middle ages daily life style – City life in the middle ages story for kids by The Ancient Library (4m)
- What Was Everyday Life Like In Medieval Britain? By History Hit (24m)
- The Medieval Candle Maker [Medieval Professions: Chandler] by Kobean History (4m)
- Medieval Guilds, Explained by The Generalists Papers (12m)
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
What’s more fun than taking a break and having a simple snack??? Including the snack in your theme of the day! We find that our kiddos are more than happy to eat the snacks they create especially when they can arrange them into fun shapes and scenes!
For our snack of the day, we attempted to make bread! While we did not follow a medieval recipe (we used a no-knead bread kit), there are certainly many that you can find online! We also continued snacking on our chessman cookies!
READING
It’s no secret that reading is an important part of learning, which is why we pick out a handful of books that are fun and filled with some learning tidbits. For our older ones, we have them fill out some worksheets (or let them create some of their own comics) to describe what they read and/or learned! These are a few we picked from for the day:
- A Medieval Feast (Reading Rainbow Books) by Aliki
- DK Eyewitness Books: Medieval Life: Discover Medieval Europe by Andrew Langley
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing is a great way to keep kids learning by both encouraging their creativity and thought process as well as helping them practice their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: HISTORY, MEDIEVAL TIMES, FEAST, CRAFTSMAN, GUILD
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices. This was our writing prompt of the day (and we offered up some examples as well) but definitely pick something your kiddo might be interested in writing about!
- If you could join any Craft (masonry, carpentry, painting, shoemaking, cloth-making, candle making…) during the Middle Ages, which one would it be and why?
- If you could be a chef in the middle ages, what amazing dishes would you create? How would you make them so they ‘entertained’ the nobles?
CREATE & CRAFT
If you’ve got a crafty little one, a simple craft is a great way to keep them interested in the topic. While their creative juices are flowing, you can also chat about what they’ve learned so far or ask them what else they’re excited about learning!
For our crafts of the day, we gave them a few options that would help them enhance their pretend play or add in some of what they learned.
- Quill & Calligraphy Writing. Writing with different tools can be a fun and educational experience! Prior to our mechanical pencils and pens, there were quills! For one of our Harry Potter Reading Days, we had a quill making craft with Make Your Own Hogwarts Paper Quills from Wizarding World. It’s definitely a fun and easy activity. If you don’t have the time to create some quills or want to get an actual calligraphy pen, you can find those online as well: Antique Two-Color Feather Pen Quill Pen.
- Candle Making. While we were not set up to make candles medieval style, we could still have fun with a candle making kit! We’ve used a few kits that have involved melting the wax, but opted for a slightly easier kit for the day – Using the Beeswax Candle Making Kit, the kids just had to roll the sheets into the shapes they wanted!
STEM & STEAM ACTIVITIES
While crafting and writing get their creativity and imagination flowing, we also like to add in an activity that gets them thinking along the lines of science, technology, engineering, or math! These engaging activities or experiments are a great way to keep them learning!
- Chess. Played by nobles, the game had slightly different rules and colors vs. today’s standard game, but still a fun activity for all (Medieval Chess by Historical Games)
- Roman Numerals Introduction. Roman numbers were still used throughout the middle ages and can be quite interesting for little ones to learn about – especially when you use them in riddles and escape rooms! 😉
THANK YOU
Thank you for checking out our at home learning fun article! If you enjoyed this post, please let us know what you think in the comments below and/or follow us on Pinterest
Also, if you haven’t already, check out some of our other Medieval History Week days, History Weeks, Magical Medieval Party, as well as our DIY At Home Camps!
Happy Learning!
