Friday, July 20, 2012

Medieval Times Week!

Woohoo!  Finally, it is Medieval Times week.  I have been looking forward to this one for quite some time, and Eva was excited too.  She loves Shrek, so when she heard we were going to be learning about knights and castles, she was totally on board.  The first order of business was to get Eva knighted.  Therefore, she needed to choose her symbols for her coat of arms.  We looked through a variety of symbols online, and she came up with a dragon and a cross as her favorite designs.  She decided she wanted her colors to be pink and black.  We first made her helmet out of metallic poster board, using a great pattern and tutorial found here.  We added some dragon emblems and the plume she chose (a peacock feather) and the helmet was done!  It was a good thing I used the pattern to do a "practice run", since as you can see I messed up the nose piece! 

Our supplies.  I think this stapler is from the 70s.

Our pattern laid out.  This was a very mommy work-intensive project.  Eva was more of an overseer and commentator
Oops!  Put the nose on the wrong way!


That's better!

Side view


Next, Eva needed a tunic.  I had some leftover pink fabric from another project, so I just measured it to her size, cut out a hole for her head, and used some transfer paper to put a dragon emblem on the front. 

Then, we made some nice bracers (to protect the arms during sword fights) using the basic pattern found here.  Eva used some fabric paint to make her own designs.


 Finally, we made her a shield where she could proudly display her emblems.  We used pink and black poster board and the tutorial found here.  Eva used a sword (which belonged to her Papa when he was a little boy) to complete her outfit.
Fantasy Hero Pose

Since it was Medieval times, we needed to have a feast!  This website gives all of the steps to having a Medieval feast, including etiquette and recipes!  We ate pig knuckles and chicken legs, and Eva was thrilled to be able to eat with her hands.  I did not go so far as to let her throw the bones on the floor though!  We used the recipe for non-alcoholic spiced wine, which Eva really enjoyed.  When Daniel came home, she told him all about the wine she drank!  Of course, she needed a fancy way to drink the wine, so Eva made goblets out of disposable wine glasses and foam stickers.  We each got our own!  We also tried aspic, which is meat suspended in gelatin.  Eva didn't like it, but I thought it was ok.
Spiced "wine"

Meat suspended in tasteless gelatin, with some pickles for flair.

Yay!  Eating a chicken leg with our hands!

This is a hunk of pig's leg.  It was delicious, and very Medieval looking.


We made some serious siege weaponry, making a catapult that sends cotton balls soaring through the air!  Eva was so inspired by the easy way the popsicle sticks fit together that she also designed her own door hanger.  I only spelled her name out for her, she did all the rest.  I was impressed!


We read several books this week to learn more about the middle ages.  The first was Die Ritterburg, which is a nice simplistic book with plastic pages that turn to reveal the inner workings of the castle.  The Meyers books are one of my favorite "information" books for Eva because they are nicely targeted to her age group and contain good information.  Another book we looked at was Globi entdeckt das Mittelalter, which focuses on Middle ages in different parts of Switzerland. Next was the Forscherhandbuch Ritter which is geared at a little bit older age group, but still good for reading some basic facts.  Finally, we also looked at Mein großes Wimmel- und Wörterbuch, Band 5: Ritter und Burgen.
 We also played a cute game called the "Hazelnut Knights" about some poor squirrels trying to hide all of their hazelnuts in a cache before the predators of the forest scare them, causing them to lose their nuts.

That's all for now!


2 comments:

  1. Nice job on the costume, it looks great!

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  2. Nice job on everything - theme, designs, food, etc. Amazing how Eva concentrates on each and every job she does, and - to top it all - as "Höhepunkt" - Emma at the end of this episode. Really great, and I am delighted.
    Tschomana

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