Medieval Stories is the sixth unit in the Middle Ages Arts course. This unit is about minstrels, mystery plays, medieval instruments and songs, the Canterbury Tales, and the King Arthur legends.
This unit contains sections on:
- Minstrels, Plays, & Storytelling
- The Canterbury Tales
- King Arthur Tales
Layers of Learning is an activity-based program. The mentor chooses from among the activities in the unit to create mental hooks for learning. Some of the activities in this unit include:
- Rehearsing and putting on your own medieval entertainment with jesters and all
- Watch and discuss “Everyman” a real medieval morality play
- Learn to play a recorder, a simple flute from the middle ages
- Craft St. George and the Dragon puppets and retell this medieval tale
- Learn to write clever couplets like Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of the Canterbury Tales
- Color figures form the Knight’s Tale and put them into an anachronistic setting
- Make a circle book as you discuss the Wife of Bath’s Tale
- Drive miniature swords into a little stone after reading the Sword in the Stone, a King Arthur tale
- And much more!
Each Layers of Learning Arts unit includes library lists of books, a family read-aloud suggestion, hands-on activities, printables and paper crafts, sidebars for extra learning, and tools to help you assess student’s progress and mastery. You can learn more about how Layers of Learning works in the Curriculum Guide or learn to teach art with the Arts Guidebook for mentors.
See Inside
Here is the inside view of a double page spread from Medieval Stories:
This shows the Explorations, or activities in the unit. Each Exploration is a day’s lesson plan. In the “Jesters” exploration, above, you can see a supply list, followed by a short explanatory paragraph, and then a numbered list of steps to complete the lesson. The curriculum is pick-and-choose, so you select which Explorations you would like to do out of the many choices.
Flexibility
This unit was written to be used for a month but contains plenty of content for many more weeks of learning if you choose. This is a pick-and-choose curriculum, meant to be cycled back to in the future when your child is older. As such, it intentionally includes far more material than you can possibly cover in a month.
Medieval Stories is also part of the overall Middle Ages Arts course, the second Year of the four year Layers of Learning Arts cycle. If you use the program in order, it will take you though the art in chronological order, tracking with the Layers of Learning History units. However, each unit stands alone and can be used independently of any other unit.
Printable Pack
This unit comes with a downloadable Printable Pack that includes all the student worksheets. The printables can be copied as many times as needed for your family or class.
You can download the Printable Pack from your receipt or from your account at Layers of Learning.
Here you see the cover and two of the printables from the Medieval Stories unit. This printable pack includes 26 pages. The Printable Pack is included in the purchase of the unit.
Extra Resources
This unit comes with extra weblinks and a YouTube video playlist on the Middle Ages Arts Resources page.
Kaya Seaton –
Absolutely delightful! We really went into this unit not knowing what to expect, and finished with it being our favorite unit so far. The resources suggested were appropriate for the ages of my students, and the activities and information engaged them all unit long.