I’m so excited to go on a journey with you this year through the exciting times of the Middle Ages, Reformation, and Renaissance! Think kings and queens, faithful monks, knights and castles, adventures and daring, battles and honor, soaring cathedrals and charming tales, new discoveries and brave explorers, and oodles and oodles of beautiful art, music, buildings, and stories. Also, welcome to any Juniors who want to learn a little history along with the Rookies and Seniors! For Juniors, just do the LISTEN, WATCH, and LOOK sections.
Let’s start out the year with exploring how faith in God shaped the lives of people during these times.
HERE’S A CHECKLIST FOR YOUR WEEK! Each month in this class you will LISTEN, WATCH, LOOK, and CREATE. (Moms, remember that this is a resource for you and you are free to adapt or leave things out as fits your week!)
LISTEN
- Listen to chapter 43 “Being Good”, and chapter 56 “Bibles Made of Stone and Glass” in the Child’s History of the World audiobook. (The chapters are short!) Available on Audible or free here.
WATCH
2. Watch this read aloud of the book “Brother Francis and the Friendly Beasts” about a famous monk/Saint from the Middle Ages who loved animals. (Scan forward to 1:00 in the video to skip uneccesary intro)
LOOK
3. Watch some of these videos about cathedrals and look at these gorgeous photos!
CREATE
4. Just for Rookies, and OPTIONAL: If you would like to, prepare a little something to share with us in class. It can be something unrelated to our class that you would like to share that you are working on at home, OR learn a little more about one of these topics related to our theme for the month and come to class with a short presentation to share with us what you learned (Moms, this can be VERY SIMPLE. Just an opportunity to practice remembering and sharing with friends.):
-Draw a picture of and/or share with us something you thought was interesting from one of our stories or videos this month. (Moms, this doesn’t have to be new info separate from what they learned in the homework material. Examples could be a printed-off picture of a pretty stained glass window, a picture they draw, no matter how stick-figurey, etc. 🙂 Just an opportunity to present something they remember.)
Other topic ideas:
-Saints
-Monasteries in Medieval Times
-Medieval Book Making
-Crusaders
-Mosques
-Pilgrims/Pilgrimages to holy places
-Martin Luther
-Reformation
***If you are doing a presentation, please tell me you are planning on it and your topic HERE so I know how many people will need time to share. Thanks!
See you in class! We will be doing some fun projects about the way of life of the faithful in Medieval times.
