Sixth Graders Host Medieval Fair at KAES

KEENE, TEX. – Sixth-grade students at Keene Adventist Elementary School (KAES) brought the Middle Ages to life by hosting a medieval fair in the school gym, where kindergarten through second-grade students were invited to experience medieval activities. More than 60 elementary students attended the event on Feb. 19, which was the result of months of cross-curricular preparation and study.

Visitors to the fair enjoyed an afternoon of medieval activities, including listening to live medieval music performed by student musicians on guitar, recorder and violin; launching a working catapult; jousting; watching a puppet show; decorating toy swords and shields; racing stick horses; participating in a maypole celebration rooted in medieval communal tradition; and eating a medieval meal of stew and barley water.

The project grew out of work students had been doing across multiple subjects. In social studies, they explored medieval culture, including the social order, the roles of knights and monks and the influence of the Church. In English language arts, students read The Door in the Wall, which introduced them to Early Modern English and sparked a study of Latin roots and the history of the English language. They carried that learning into the fair by speaking in Early Modern English throughout the event.

The project extended into other subjects as well. Students produced informative videos in technology class, wrote research papers in English and social studies, learned period music in band, practiced the maypole celebration in physical education and built catapults in math class.

The fair closed with a knighting ceremony in which select students were honored for demonstrating chivalrous character or excelling in a particular skill, providing a memorable conclusion to the project.

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By Sadie Kennedy

Teacher

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