PROJECT FOR CLASSROOM TEACHERS
6. Projects can be making shields with coats of arms, using the meanings of the children’s names, if possible. Translate Spanish names or use symbols that sound like the names. Children can think up ideas or just use their favorite interests. There are coats of arms books in libraries.
7. Show copies of illuminated manuscripts of the 1200’s, 1300’s, 1400’s. The gorgeous scenes of medieval life and the beautiful embellishments of the letters can inspire the children to create a page of an illuminated manuscript themselves. You can give the children wash and dris to clean their hands first before examining the books to protect the books, but more importantly, to instill a reverence for books. You can point out, for example, that French manuscripts usually had curling ivy all around the edges of the illustrations. We imagine the symbolism was eternal life, because ivy stays green all year round. (It also was the plant of Bacchus, the wine god!)
After the students see these, they can plan to write the story about knights or ladies of the Middle Ages and plan the illustrations they will use. This has to be done in their best handwriting; then they can plan the border decorations and particularly the letters sketched out first, then colored. They should plan to leave room for large, decorated letters beginning paragraphs.