Knights in Battle!

It's hard to beat sword-fighting as a King Arthur activity. I ordered pre-cut shields and swords from Oriental Trading Company and let the knights personalize them. The shields gave us a great opportunity to talk about what a crest is, and how it represents a family. Each knight created his own crest for his shield.

Helmets are also an important means of protecting oneself in battle. We cut posterboard strips to fit around each knight's head, then taped a circle on top for a crown. Of course, covering the posterboard in aluminum foil made them look more realistic--and intimidating.

Finally, the swords! Some knights drew their crests on the hilt, while others made jeweled hilts by gluing beads to the posterboard. And here are the final products of Ms. Mary's Posterboard and Tinfoil Armory.

The Battle for Northside

Everything in this story came from the kids’ imaginations. I just wrote it all down. Your Humble Secretary, The Lady Mary

Tonight we fought the Battle of the Library Battlements at the Northside Castle. In real life, this means we played on the patio. The battle opened with immediate injury for Arthur’s side, for Sir C was struck in the stomach by a rock from the enemy’s catapult. Sir H took an arrow to the stomach, whilst Sir TT suffered a blow to the arm. Luckily, Merlin’s Apprentice, the Lady K, cast a spell to heal our brave knights.

At first we could not identify our enemy, but Sir H’s quick intelligence revealed that none other than Mordred was lurking outside Northside Castle. Sir H, ever the standard-bearer for chivalry, asked for permission to shoot an arrow at the enemy. He and Sir TT also killed a cow and a goose for a medieval feast, even though Sir H is a vegetarian.

Meanwhile, the wicked Mordred cast a spell that turned Sir C into a monster. Sir C attempted to curse Lady K with the same affliction, but the powers she learns at Merlin’s side protected her from this evil spell.  While Sir C and Lady K battled, Sirs H and TT teleported to the Civil War to steal guns. They had sadly concluded that guns were the only effective weapon against the monster that had possessed Sir C.

The effort to save Sir C failed, and we gave him a Viking funeral to salute his valor in battle. We also risked losing the brave Sir H, for he temporarily lost his mind to a spell cast by Mordred. At first he uttered nonsense, but he gathered his wits to tell us he was uttering the prophecy for our next quest. He and the brave knights returned indoors to plan their strategy for the quest. Tune in next time to learn what the quest will be!

Library Kids vs. Morgana le Fay

At tonight’s meeting, we read a story in which King Arthur meets the evil Morgana le Fay. We talked about how we know she is evil because an evil light is in her eye, and because she keeps secrets from her husband. I foreshadowed some upcoming legends by telling them that Arthur will confront Morgana again. I asked them what they would do if they confronted Morgana le Fay. I’ve reconstructed the following story from a battle plan created by Sir Eli, Sir Sahid, Sir Ty, and Sir Wes. My goal is to get the kids to tell me more stories so we can lay the groundwork for some creative writing games...I mean, exercises.

We would call King Arthur, and the authorities, and the Ghostbusters. If she was alone, we would tackle her into submission with our sheer brute force.

If she had an army, we would assemble our own army. We would use golden weapons with power and lasers to fight her. We would stick a watermelon on her head so she could not see. We would throw smoke bombs, electricity bombs, and ninja stars at her. We would also put her in a maze so she can’t find her way out.

We Found the Lady's Pond!

I'm using this book club as a stealth means of teaching the kids history and geography. With this goal in mind, I decided to have the kids draw fantasy maps of where they think the lady's pond should be.

First I gave each child a map I had made to illustrate King Arthur's realms. I traced some maps of Great Britain, Ireland, and France together, and labeled them with the place names mentioned in the legends. For instance, "Brittany" was labeled as "Armorica," and I showed them the approximate locations of Gwynedd and Powys in Wales. (I say "approximate" because I put Powys a little too far south. My apologies to my Welsh friends, Lee and Felicity Waters!) I had great fun making the maps look antique by smearing them with my tea bags. I drink a lot of tea, so this task did not take long.

Once I had made my maps, I printed a copy of an antique map showing ships and sea monsters in the seas surrounding Wales. Mad props are due to the National Library of Wales, which had some great images I borrowed. You can explore the NLW's collections here: http://www.llgc.org.uk/. I encouraged the kids to follow the examples and create their own fantasy maps of the Lady of the Pond's realms.

In addition to sneaking some history and geography lessons into an art lesson, I am preparing these kids for their destinies as readers of fat fantasy novels with maps on the endpapers. Who knows, maybe some of the kids will get jobs as illustrators. You can say you saw their work here first:

The Lady Illuminated

Many people associate King Arthur with the Middle Ages because legends about him became very popular during that era. However, the legends about King Arthur actually date back to the fifth and sixth centuries C.E., when Britain was invaded by Saxons from the European continent. King Arthur may be based on a British warrior who fought the invading Saxons. For now, the King Arthur Book Club is exploring the medieval world through these timeless legends.

We recently learned about illuminated manuscripts and their role in medieval times. Illuminated manuscripts are richly decorated documents that preserve texts that medieval people valued. Many of them are religious texts, such as the books of the Bible. The Lindsfarne Gospels are among the most well-known illuminated manuscripts. To view sample pages from the Lindsfarne Gospels online, visit this page on the British Library's website: http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/Results.asp

The beauty of these documents inspired us to create illuminated manuscripts about The Lady of the Pond. You can view our manuscripts here!

The Lady of the Pond in Haiku

Our first tales of the Lady of the Pond are haiku. Haiku are short and sweet--three lines, seventeen syllables--so it's an accessible form of poetry for kids ages 8 to 11. This exercise helped us listen for and identify syllables while we stretched our creative muscles. Our haiku are listed below; I've retained the children's spelling and grammar for authenticity.

Lady of the Pond
She is nice to me and you.
Shall we tell her tale?

Lady of the Pond
Is awesomer than her sis,
Lady of the Lake.

It is the quest my freind
it is the first quest af All
lancealot shall prove

two shall betray him
the frind and his love
the king shall not live

Lady of the Pond
She is very beautiful
She owns lake and pond

Pond full of Lady
Gave us a look so shady
cuz we yelled "Katie!"

I saw a lady
at the pond one happy day
running super fast

Lady of the Pond
thayt is sow frekon awsom
lady of the pond

Lady of the Pond
She has honey with her tea
Lady of the Pond