A friend of mine who teaches 7-year-olds wants me to come in and do a session on Medieval clothing, preferably with lots of tangible stuff. I’m not sure how to translate “dilettante costume bore” into 7-year-old. I asked her what she’d like and her answer could have covered a university course’s worth of material.
Basically- talk about the difference levels of society and how their clothing differed, how it was made, how it changed over time. Provide concrete examples as much as possible. I’ve got a bliaut hanging around somewhere, but anything else I’d have to make. I just googled SCA garb pictures and came up with lots of stuff- I could probably find a reasonable number of pictures and knock out a few t-tunics and a cape and surcoat, but I’m still getting bogged down and want suggestions- what do you think I should include, and how can I make it not boring for the children?
Make them kid sized, have volunteers wear them, then role play what societal niche they belong to. Couch everything in terms of how life is different now from then.
Don’t worry about trying to explain “Medieval” - stick with “a long long time ago.”
Get in touch with your mostest local SCAdians, and ask if they have any kid-size general ‘garb’ they would be willing to loan you for a school lesson. Dress-up is good. If you can’t find any, then pin up or cut down some basic t-tunics. Dress-up is good.
Sumptuary laws are a little bit off-period, but they always make a good impression on kids. “What do you mean the government decided they couldn’t wear x?” Make it so that “x” is like wearing their favorite bling or having a cellphone, so they really get it.
Emphasize the differences between women’s and men’s clothing, and that people didn’t get to decide what they wanted to wear - most kids aren’t really aware that for a very long time, that was even something to consider.
Kids also seem to like the idea of having an underlayer of clothes that gets changed daily or so, and an outer layer that you never change, and the idea of not bathing because the underwear change supposedly keeps you clean.
If all else fails, go in for the silly hats routine - hennin hats and liripipes FTW!
I think you are way overthinking this. You’re not going to cover much in a half-hour. Bring in some pictures and some swatches of fabrics to pass around.
"Rich people wore heavy, complicated fabrics like this velvet or brocade. [pass around swatches]. They liked gold jewelry just like we do today. Their clothes looked like [pictures]
Poor people wore homemade fabrics like this felted wool or this undyed linen [pass around swatches]. Their clothes looked like [pictures]."
Maybe a little bit about dyes, how certain colors were rare and valuable, and signified wealth.
Maybe a little bit about how often people took a bath or washed their clothes. 7 year olds are into the gross-out factor.
(warning:I don’t know a damn thing about medieval clothing…)
But it might be a good idea to tell the kids that most people just didnt have much clothing at all.
( I assume that the average feudal serf owned only the shirt on his back, or, if he had a second one, he was rich.)
Ask the kids how many t-shirts they have at home, and try to convince them that once-upon-a-time people couldnt just go to a store to buy clothes–they had to make them from scratch
