Knight Lapbook & Go Along Books

Towards the end of last year, when we came to the realisation that the very popular program we had been using was no longer meeting our needs, we went looking for something else.

That elusive something else! We were already deep within the Medieval time period and had covered Vikings earlier in the year and I didn't really want to go it alone.

I did however know that I wanted to move forward with all things Medieval. Things like Knights, Chivalry, Jousting and all the fun that that contains.

So I was quite elated when I stumbled onto the Knight Lap-Pak over at Homeschool In The Woods. Yes the targeted age is K - 2 but all three of my kids did this at varying levels.

The images are a little cutesy and young looking, but they were all ok with that. There really is very little writing so I just ramped it up for mine by adding in some written reporting requirements.

This Lap-Pak is available on CD or via a download. Given that HITW is an American company I chose the download option.

We decided to put our mini books together on sheets of A4 coloured card, that way they can be hole punched and placed directly into a ring binder, or protected with plastic sleeves first. We enjoy lapbooks but I always struggle with storing them.

The Knight Lap-Pak includes an MP3 Audio story to listen to as you work through the many mini books and activities that it includes. It covers pretty much all there is to know about Knights for younger kids, weaponry, chivalry, ceremonies etc Here after reading about their shields and what the symbols on them represent they each had to design their own shield.

There are several colouring pages throughout the pack and the entire MP3 Audio story can also be printed to use as a read aloud and/or to include in your lap pak if you wish.

My kids especially liked the interactive mini books, here on The Tournament one, where my son spent a massive amount of time getting the colours just right, you can move the jousting knight along the page and the castle draw bridge on the book below it really does go up and down.

After completing the Knight Lap Pak and reading our pile of books about Knights my eldest wrote a brief report covering all of the main points on Knights.

There are so many great medieval knight books out there, but I thought I would share just a few. To see inside and more details on these please see my post, Books About Knights. (coming soon)

Do you have any other great books or activities you have done when learning about knights?  I'd love to hear about them if you do.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

P.S I was NOT compensated in any way for this post. Simply sharing a product I purchased that we enjoyed using.

Illumination Patterns - Medieval History

We are well and truly in the mix of Medieval Times in regards to our history reading. This year we are following along with Story Of The World Book 2 as our spine. We are using loads of great books, documentaries and activities to enhance history though, as I feel SOTW as a stand alone is somewhat lacking for us.

Marveling at the intricate and ornate work done in Illuminated books really sparked the kids interest. The attention to detail and the sheer volume of time spent on creating these stunning works of art is simply amazing.

SOTW includes a simplified colouring page for those that wish to try their hand at illuminating a letter or two.

Marguerite Makes A Book, the story of a young girl living in Paris in the early 1400's. Through a series of events she is led to assist her father, a famous manuscript illuminator to complete a very important book.

This is a long picture book, broken into chapters. This is one of the reasons why we found the book so endearing, it truly was suitable for a wide variety of ages. The stunning illustrations kept my youngest captivated and the story itself has enough adventures and accurate detailing to keep the older of my crew enthralled.

By the end of the story you really have a feel for what it was like to create a book, the amount of effort, time and perseverance that was put into each and every one of these amazing hand made books, is nothing short of amazing!

From there we went searching. We found a pretty cool pinterest board with medieval illuminations, boarders, patterns and letters.

We came across this 3 minute you tube clip which shows some reproduction work of an illuminated letter.


   

 I really wanted the kids to try this out for themselves, but knew I had to choose something that was achievable. This clip has full instructions on creating your own patterned monograms in a fun, easy, creative way.

And so we set to it. I grabbed pencils, rubbers, fine tip markers and gel pens (my kids absolutely love using glittery gel pens) and sketch books.

They had the option of free hand drawing their chosen letter or I had already printed a large letter that we could trace. Having the outline definitely helped the less adventurous kids.

We all enjoyed working on these, it was creative, yet simple and very meditative once you got into it. The process definitely gave us a feel for the work involved in creating illuminated manuscripts.