Kings, Queens & Castles Workshop

Explore the daily life of people in the Medieval times! We bring our mini-museum of artefacts for the students to explore in a hands-on and engaging workshop session so we can find out the answers to all their questions! What was it like to have lots of money? What did they eat? What did they wear? What jobs did people in the Castle Court have? How were coins made? How did the poor live differently from the rich? How do you defend a castle? Everything we bring can be held with and played with by the students, and all activities are hosted by our Living History Actors.

During this Key Stage 1 aimed workshop, we look at Medieval times - primarily Tudors for a younger audience. Using a mini-museum full of artefacts from daily life and weaponry, we can explore as a group how people lived in the Tudor/Elizabethan time period. What did they eat? What did they wear? What did they do for fun? How did they defend themselves? Our artefacts are hardy replicas that can be held, used and played with during the session and all activities are hosted by our Living History Actors.

We know that Alfred the Great, who ruled Wessex, was classed as the first Monarch; and since then we've had a long list of them! In this workshop, we look at why Monarchs were so important to life in Britain during the Medieval era. Who was the most famous Monarch? What did they do? How did they live? who worked for them in their castles? What rules did they decide upon? Would you want to be the King or Queen or prefer to be a member of the court? Our role play game looks at the job roles within the castle...who will get to be in charge and who will have the not so fun, smelly jobs?

What did people need to look for when finding a good place to live? Was their good farming land to grow crops? Was there plenty of water? If you were building a castle, where would you put it? On a hill so you could see everything around you and quickly see an enemy army coming your way? Or would you put on lower ground surrounded by trees so you could hide yourself from the enemy? Picking a good location for your home settlement in the past was a pretty big deal! In our workshop, we explore how castles were made, how they adapted and eventually grew into bigger palaces throughout the Medieval time period. Was there a most popular place to live?

Throughout this workshop we will look at why castles were built the way they were? where is the best place to build a castle? Children will then decide which design they would choose and how they would build their own castle.

We explore storytelling and look at the myths and legends of castles, including famous individuals, as part of our workshop. We use storytelling as a tool to learn how castles were originally built, how they transformed into palaces and how people used to live in them. What were their jobs? What was the most valued job to have in Court? During the workshop, we also look at the words for different components of castles; for example, drawbridge, moat and gatehouse. What part of the castle do these words refer to and what does that area of the castle do?