Posts Tagged ‘medieval’

Medieval Wax Seal

Friday, June 8th, 2012

medieval-wax-seal

My husband bought a medieval wax seal before we were married and never used it. I jumped up and down and said, “Can we use it, please?” He finally relented. It was brand new, and I suppose he never intended to use it. He just thought it was cool.

The kit included three waxy metallic candles in blue, dark red, and gold. It also included the letter “E,” which stands for “Evans,” our family name.

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We lit the candles and dripped the wax in a puddle to seal a letter. The children had each written a letter to God, which they sealed, only to open when they are adults.

The seal was made out of metal. It was heavy for its size. You press the seal into the hot wax. It leaves an imprint. Then you wait for the wax to cool before lifting it up and looking at it.

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If you don’t have a medieval wax seal, I suppose you could use candle wax and a rubber stamp. But it might ruin your rubber stamp, so choose a stamp you don’t like. You could use a stamp that represents your child, like a monkey stamp for my daughter, who climbs on top of everything, including the roof of the neighbor’s shed.

Now the children each have a letter that has been sealed with our family seal. My husband let each child press the seal into the melted wax.

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Toy Trebuchet

Tuesday, April 10th, 2012

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Watch my children as they play with a toy trebuchet. We put together the pieces of the wooden kit before filming the launching of objects across our backyard. After all, what kid doesn’t want to build fun historical weapons of war? Take a look at how the kids squeal as we have fun with this toy trebuchet.

Silly Gold Crowns

Sunday, January 1st, 2012

silly-gold-crowns

Gold crowns are super easy to make. Get yourself some gold paper, and cut it into a strip the thickness of a crown. Cut it along the top in a zig-zag. Then staple it together. You’re done. It took you less than 5 minutes.

If you want to print out your crown on card stock paper, you can download your crown here. Go ahead and print two of them, and staple the four pieces together, the size of your child’s head.

If you want to decorate it more, use whatever you have in your art supplies. One of my sons used fancy toothpicks that look like fireworks all around his crown. (They were left over from the Fourth of July.) You can staple or tape it on. I fished some red Christmas tinsel out of the trash, and we hot glued that on. He glued some buttons on, too, and some gold rope along the bottom.

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My daughter glued fake jewels onto her crown with white school glue. She wanted to put pom-poms at the top of each peak of her crown, so I put hot glue on it, and she stuck the ball at the top of each one. We put some gold trim on the bottom, and we found some bees. (I think my mother gave me some fake bees one day, and I threw them into the art supplies.)

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My goofy son put large google eyes on his crown, and a moustache. An orange feather was hot glued to the front, along with small jingle bells in a random pattern. (He wanted his crown to make noise when he moved.) Fake jewels, more feathers, and fancy Fourth of July toothpicks rounded out his goofy crown.

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My oldest son always complicates things. He made an orange umbrella completely out of paper. He folded a boingy orange thing off the side and re-enforced it with a popsicle stick. He hot glued jewels to it, and a plastic spring from a broken toy. (Yes, I salvage cool stuff off broken toys before tossing them in the trash.)

Behold, our fabulous crowns. Easy, fun, and goofy.

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Medieval Unit Study

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

medieval-unit-studyThis video shows you the hands-on activities we will be doing for our Medieval Unit Study. The activities include building large and small cardboard castles, shield-making, catapult and trebuchet models, archery, and a Medieval feast.

Medieval Unit Study: Hands-on Activities:

I’ve linked to a few activities to get you started with this time period:

Life-sized cardboard castle, medieval feast, cathedral tour, and more in the Unit Study Treasure Vault!