Petie Tate

Life in the Middle Ages

Focus and Review: Review by reading a passage in the book The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman (p. 17 par. 1). Ask students to compare and contrast what the passage is saying with their daily lives today. How are they alike? How are they different? Make a chart on the board representing the comparisons and the contrasts.

Objective: For the next several days, we are going to be talking about a period in history called the Middle Ages, which were approximately 1100 to 1300. This was a time when kings, queens, and knights lived. It is also the time when our book, The Midwife’s Apprentice takes place. This lesson meets the following goals for the North Carolina Standard Course Objectives in both social studies and technology for the fifth grade:

5.1 Explain how people of the Western Hemisphere adapt and have adapted to the physical environment.

6.1 Analyze the movement of people, goods, and ideas within and among the countries of the United States, Canada, and Latin America and between the Western Hemisphere and other places.

6.3 Judge how changes in the movement of people, goods, and ideas have affected ways of living in the Western Hemisphere.

11.2 Identify examples of cultural transmission and interaction within and among the regions of the Western Hemisphere.

2.1 Use technology tools to collect, analyze, and display data.

Teacher Input: In this lesson, I am going to do a KWL to teach the middle ages. I will ask them to write down what they already know, and what they want to learn about the Middle Ages.

Guided Practice: I will assign them to 5 groups. Each group will be given a slip of paper with a topic on it. The topics will be the following: fashion, homes, entertainment, jobs, and food. Each group will get a website address to print out the information they need for the activity. I will walk around and make sure the students are on task and offer any help that may be needed while they are working on the computer. I will show them some examples of the product they will make in the independent practice.

Independent Practice: The students will make a product that will entice people to want to visit the Middle Ages. The food group will make a menu with descriptions of types of foods common in the Middle Ages. The menu should include drinks, main courses, and desserts. The fashion group will create a fashion “magazine” with different types of clothing trends common in the Middle Ages. It should include hairstyles, clothing worn by men and women, and footwear. The homes group will make a real estate brochure including homes for sale. The homes should be consistent with the types of dwellings in the Middle Ages. The entertainment group will make a flyer advertising an entertaining show that is going to be held in the village. This should include instruments of the Middle Ages and any other entertainment provided then. Finally, the jobs group will make a classified newsletter advertising for “Help Wanted. This should include the types of jobs people did during the Middle Ages.

The students must be reminded that there were different classes of people during the Middle Ages. These will be explained in the websites they find on the Internet, but the students will be required to include the different classes within their projects. For example, the homes group will need to make different sections in their real estate brochure because different classes of people lived in different homes.

Closure: We will share our products and do the last part of the KWL. I will ask the students to write down what they learned about the Middle Ages and what we liked about the project.