#3577. Designing Medieval Shields

Social Studies, level: Elementary
Posted Mon Jan 2 22:32:40 PST 2006 by Amy Keus (amykeus@netscape.net).
Bran Castle - Medieval Resources
Canada
Materials Required: Construction Paper, Glue, and assorted odds'n'ends
Activity Time: 3-4 periods
Concepts Taught: History, Writing, and Art

Designing Shields

There are two types of shields - battle shields and nobility shields. We like to design both.

Battle Shields

Materials Needed:

Large piece of cardboard
Sorted scrap materials, such as bottle caps, straws, matchboxes, playdough, etc.
Glue
Black paint
Aluminum Foil
Kleenex / Kitchen Roll / Rag
Steps:

From your large piece of cardboard, cut a large circle to form a large, round shield.
Glue your scrap materials to the cardboard to make an interesting design.
Tear up pieces of aluminum foil and glue them over the entire shield. Be sure to get in every little crack!
Paint the entire shield in black.
Dab off the paint immediately using the rag. Do not take all the paint off. We want it to be left in the cracks. This will "antique" the shield.
Nobility Shields

Materials Needs:

A large piece of paper (legal or A3) with the photocopied outline of a shield on it.
"Coat of Arms" by Daly-Wier
Scrap paper
pencil and eraser
construction paper
scissors
glue
Steps:

Start the lesson by handing out photocopies from Daly-Weir's "Coat of Arms" book. This book is absolutely fantastic. I honestly wouldn't know what I would do without it. This book contains the history of nobility shields, an analysis of the different colours used, descriptions of ordinaries and common charges, a discussion of positions, descriptions of special charges, a discussion of how designs were chosen, and heredity issues. Read through with the children and discuss.
Each child, on scrap paper, should draw their personal shield using information about themselves. For example, if a child is the third son in the family, his shield should have a mullet somewhere on it. Someone who is good in school might want to put a bear (intelligence) on their shield. Besides these considerations, they children have to decide what type of ordinary they will use (e.g. dancetty, fess potenty, etc.) and what colours they will use. The colours are difficult because there are rules governing which colours are allowed to be together.
Once the teacher has okayed each shield (checking for colour schemes, etc.), the children can use their draft copy to create a good copy on the large paper.
I normally have the children do this using construction paper. A good idea is to have the children put their background colours on first before their symbols. Otherwise, it gets tricky trying to cut a background around intricate symbols.
When the shield has been assembled, the children should outline it in a very thick black marker and then cut it out using scissors.
When the children are done, they write a paragraph explaining why they create the shield that they did. They should focus upon the fact that the shield is highly personal to them. Later, the children can read their paragraphs and show their shields in division assemblies.
I normally then hang the shields up very high on my classroom wall (in a spot where decorations don't normally go because they are too high). I leave them up for the rest of the year and it really makes a great decoration for the classroom. Also, the kids like seeing them because they are like personalised name tags that decorate our room.