middle ages and renassaince field trips ideas

[Rosyl]

I am trying to incorporate more field trips this year. we will be studying middle ages and the renassaince.

 

I have found a medieval fest nearby, a shakespeare play on a canal boat....anyone else have ideas?

 

On a side note, it is because of the filing system that I am able toplan field trips.

[anissa]

No new ideas..I just want to encourage you to go to the medieval festival on a day they host schools. Those things attract some strange folks and they tone it down for school groups. Oh, I just thought of a trip, how about an art museum?

[Rosyl]

Thanks, I was wondering if that would be my best choice.

[Mom in High Heels]

Well, I guess it all depends on where you live. Every region of the US has different things to offer. I know in WI there is the Bristol Ren. Fair; TN has a Ren Fair; The Alabama Shakespeare Festival is amazing; there are several activities in CA; etc.

You can always go to museums and look at MA art/sculpture and if you're really lucky they'll have a MA weapons display. The art museum of St. Louis has a pretty good weapons exhibit. You can also look up virtual field trips, which aren't quite as exciting, but still show you loads of stuff. I'm pretty sure the Tower of London has one.

 

We will be studying the middle ages this year too, but we live in Germany, so field trips for us are super easy. We live within an hour of about 25 castles and countless churches/abbeys/monasteries, so we're in the perfect spot for this year (several of them we can actually walk to from our house). Indy and I are flying to London for a week in Oct to visit sites there. I can't WAIT for that. I love London. Want to come visit me???? I'll show you around. :)

[dsmama]

Great ideas! I was thinking of going to a planetarium when we do Galileo and Copernicus. Yes, a stretch, but we're also doing astronomy for science, and so I think it will work.

 

Very exciting to the PP in Germany. What an awesome opportunity for learning!

[abbeyej]

The "tone" depends a lot on the individual renfest. Personally, I'm not a fan of school day trips -- just too many screaming kids. ;) But talk to some local people to find out if yours is the more "drunken" type, or if, by going in the morning, you'll get all of the fun without any weirdness...

 

Shakespeare plays a great -- if you can see a couple of different ones or in different circumstances, even better. (For instance, if you happen to be near VA, the American Shakespeare in Staunton stages their plays under the original staging conditions, so it's like going to see a play as it would have appeared (well, lol, more or less) during Shakespeare's time...

 

Definitely art museums -- perhaps plan a trip early in the year to see some of the medieval, religious art and another trip at the end of the year when you can see the difference in renaissance art.

 

Find out if there are any churches in your area that are modeled on the style of European cathedrals. They won't be the same (I'm assuming you're in North America -- at least not in Europe -- or your question would have been quite different!), but you will get to look at elements that are similar.

 

If there are universities within driving distance, check their websites and see what sorts of exhibits they will have over the coming year on their campus. Sometimes you can really luck out with fabulous collections or traveling exhibits, and the cost of visiting those museums is generally quite low.

 

Also look around (churches and universities often host these) for musical performances that will fit your time period. I would expect most to be around Christmas or possibly Easter...

 

Oh, one more thing... See if you have some sort of Scandinavian society in your area. Ours occasionally hosts a festival that includes viking history, displays, even re-enactments...

[woolybear]

Any chance you are in the northeast? I have some great ideas for this area.

[Rosyl]

I am in Ohio.

[Rosie_0801]

Look for re-enactment groups as well as Ren Faires. They are a different kettle of fish, and the SCA at least is quite family friendly, in my experience. To attend a feast you'd need to take enough crockery (wooden stuff is easily found it thrift shops) but you could borrow garb. It gets a bit pricey for a whole family, but if you consider what you'd be paying if you took everyone to a fairly nice restaurant, it's quite reasonable. The difference between this and a Ren Faire, as far as I can tell (we don't have Ren Faires here) is that at a re-enactment event, you are part of it, at a Faire you are part of the audience.

 

Rosie

 

SCA Ohio: http://www.midrealm.org/findgroup.php

Edited August 1, 2010 by Rosie_0801

[Guest ozarkcat]

I was going to mention the SCA - I've been a member for over 10 years, and wouldn't raise my daughter in any other organization. There are local groups all over the world - I want to say that Ohio is Midrealm - here's a website that will direct you to a local group:

http://www.midrealm.org/seneschallorum/index.phtml#Oaken

SCA events tend to be a lot different than Ren Faires in that rather than just watching, people are encouraged to participate. Rather than watching someone spin, weave, do calligraphy, fight, cook, sew, etc., there is a lot more push to _learn_ how to do these things. There are also children's activities at a lot of these events.

 

If this is something that you have an active interest in and want to continue participating with, you'll find that a lot of these people become family - I have no problem going to events and letting my daughter run around with other kids, because I know the kids, I know the parents, and I know the other participants. My daughter doesn't get herself in trouble or a dangerous situation because she's got a whole village looking out for her and she knows she won't get away with it ;) Because of our participation in these kinds of groups, she knows how to dance, make up her own songs, play a recorder (albeit a bit out of tune), behave honourably and identify useful local plants. She understands that people walking around with swords and shields would be thrilled to carry her favor into a tourney or battle, and that she'd better freeze when someone calls out "HOLD!" because there could be something dangerous nearby. Above and beyond that, she know that there are people outside her immediate family who care about her and will provide a great support structure for her in coming years. She's been going since she was a 3-week-old preemie who'd been home about 2 weeks.

 

The children I've seen raised in the SCA tend to have more respect for others, more strength of character, more confidence in themselves and are capable of carrying on an adult level conversation - which are very much the same virtues that convinced me I wanted to homeschool (in fact, it was one of my dear friends who was homeschooling that I met in the SCA that encouraged me into that route, before I was even married or had DD). Forgive me if I wax poetic, it's just one of those things I'm rather passionate about. :blush:

 

Look for re-enactment groups as well as Ren Faires. They are a different kettle of fish, and the SCA at least is quite family friendly, in my experience. To attend a feast you'd need to take enough crockery (wooden stuff is easily found it thrift shops) but you could borrow garb. It gets a bit pricey for a whole family, but if you consider what you'd be paying if you took everyone to a fairly nice restaurant, it's quite reasonable. The difference between this and a Ren Faire, as far as I can tell (we don't have Ren Faires here) is that at a re-enactment event, you are part of it, at a Faire you are part of the audience.

 

Rosie

 

SCA Ohio: http://www.midrealm.org/findgroup.php