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Class prepared by Nuria Sanguinetti
Age: adolescents at a bilingual school or adults at a teachers´ training course.
Objectives:
· Learning and memorising different elements of the Middle Ages ( in this case, a King´s visit to a Castle) after a whole unit of this historical period with slides.
· Developing historical empathy
· Fostering creativity for a further written or artistic
activity.
· Memory exercise (vocabulary)
Material necessary: adaptation of the story , paper, pen ,colour pencils
Cleaning the House- Right Posture
Description of different stages of the exercise:
n Preparing the body: stretching the back ( different varieties )
n Moving shoulders and joints
n Neck rotations
Breathing exercises: (related to the topic: Middle Ages)
“Drawing castles” Teacher draws on the blackboard the top part of a wall of any castle. Inhale stop! exhale stop! Inhale stop! Exhale stop!
Aim: Students can realise there is a break between inhaling and exhaling.
Short Yoga Nidra
Visualisation: the teacher reads the story
Tratak: When students open their eyes they see a big mandala on the blackboard which says “medieval feast” in the middle and eight difficult words from the story written on it ,around the centre.
Students look at it for some seconds and then they close their eyes and they reproduce the image in their inner screen . Later, they open their eyes again and they check how much they could remember.
Variations: After the activity students can enjoy the real pictures of the book through transparencies.
Concentration stage:They can also write their own version of the visit (post written activity)or the feast, or do an arts and crafts activity with paint.
Remarks: Creativity improves a lot after a visualisation.
Memory is really succesful when done with mandalas and tratak.
Origin of Yoga exercise: Pawanamuktasana (first series) , dharana, tratak
STORY: VISUALISATION
Adaptation of a story from Aliki
“We are going to travel to the Middle Ages with our minds. A time of kings and queens, castles, monasteries, cathedrals, lords and ladies. Get in contact with your images form this period.
And imagine....
The king is coming to visit! The lord and lady Camdenton Manor know very well what that means: more than a hundred mouths to feed and souls to put up for a night , what an enormous effort! It is not only the king himself, but also his wife and retinue, the lords and servants who are coming.
Preparations start immediately. The royal chambers are redecorated, silk is spun for new tapestries, sheets are embroidered with the royal shield and the kings chair is painted......but most importantly, supplies for the great banquet have to be acquired.
The lord and his court go hunting with their falcons and hawks, which catch rabbits, hares, boars, pheasants and blackbirds for their masters.
In the meantime, servants go fishing for trout, salmon and herring.
In the vegetable garden, fresh fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers (to be used in sauces and salads) are collected. Walk with us into the garden.
Look around you........see the glorious colours..... feel the textures of different vegetables........smell the scent of ripe herbs and fruit........hear the sound of bees preparing honey that will sweeten the dishes...........
Let’s now leave the garden and go to the lord’s mill, where cereals are ground into flour to make flat loaves of bread which will serve as dishes at the feast. Somewhere else , butter is churned, cheese is made, beer and wine are prepared for the visit.
The lord’s kitchen, an enormous area with various fires, cookers and worktops and a high vaulted ceiling, is where the numerous cooks and helpers make ready the manifold dishes. Pigs, deers and boars but also swans, geese and quails are roasted on logfires. Spicy meat stew boils in cauldrons.
Everything is ready. Trumpets announce the king’s arrival, and the guests fill the Great Hall at ten thirty in the morning.
The King sits down at the main table with the lords and other guests of honour around him. While the bishop blesses the food, the nobles’ hands are washed in scented water and dried with soft towels.
And they eat and eat and eat.
Be our guest........join us at the royal table and enjoy the feast. While we eat, juglars, drolls (or fools) and minstrels will entertain us.
Drums and trumpets announce the first course: meat, pastries, fish pie and thick vegetable soup are brought in.
Help yourself......taste it.
The drums again....and in comes a huge castle made of bread and filled with minced meat, egg, fruit and nuts......help us finish it off........
Next ciçomes an enormous pie stuffed with twenty-four blackbirds.......one of which is alive and flies away!
And all of these can be topped by delicious sweet or hot sauces..........make your choice.
One dish follows the previous one until the last course, a marzipan sculpture of inmense beauty, is brought by the servants.
We eat and eat until dusk...... the feast is worthy of a King and there is still more for tomorrow .
“Very slowly, start moving your fingers, very slowly move your arms, pay attention to transition, take your time and when you are ready you open your eyes”
Remember students will be very creative after this visualisation so prepare the post- activity very well:
Will they write?
Will they paint?
Will they draw?
Will they just share their experience orally?
These are some of the drawings done by students of form 4, bilingual school, 10 years old.
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