Battle of Hastings

My sister, Kami, is a seamstress who likes to make authentic period clothing.  Remember my Halloween Scottish outfits?  Yep, she made them.

 Below is a "Heidi" outfit Kami made for my niece who lives in Switzerland.

Below are my very favorite outfits Kami ever made.  Such adorable gnomes!!!  For the record, Sebastian's outfit is modeled on a traditional Norwegian outfit.

Here's the traditional Norwegian outfit.

If you're not impressed by gnomes, here is Dread Pirate Sebastian.

Because my sister likes to look at authentic costumes, she is a big fan of reenactments of any sort.  When I told her that I was starting our Viking unit she immediately emailed me some great links to Viking reenactments.

Then she sent me a link to an incredible reenactment of the Battle of Hastings.  Truth be told, I didn't know what the Battle of Hastings was or its significance until last week.  If you don't know either, it is the battle that the Saxons lost to the Normans, allowing the Normans (French) to take over England for a time.  Tonight we read in our Barbarians! book that the Battle of Hastings came quite soon after a Saxon vs. Viking battle wherein the Vikings lost, signifying the end of the Viking era.

I hope I didn't lose you in all that.

If you are interested, here is the amazing youtube video about the reenactment--the largest reenactment ever, involving thousands of participants.  It was awesome to watch.

The Battle of Hastings reminds me of another spectacular history reference--the game "Timeline."  Each player is given four or five cards (or more if you want the game to last longer) with a picture and brief description of an event on the front.  One card is drawn as the reference point then each player takes turns placing their cards in the right order using the first card as a reference.  Basically you are putting together a timeline.  I had the Battle of Hastings once in a game and I had no idea what that was.

You might think this game is only for older kids, but my 8 year old beat us all once.  The pictures on the front of the card are very helpful in narrowing down when something happened and you don't need to know the exact date, just the date in relation to the cards already in play.

It is one of my favorite games ever.  Unless we play "Timeline: Discovery and Invention," which is not my favorite game because I lose every time.  Grr!  Historical events are the easiest and science discoveries are the hardest for me.

I *highly* recommend this game.  You can find it here: http://www.amazon.com/Timeline-Historical-Events-Card-Game/dp/2914849869/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390964960&sr=8-1&keywords=timeline.

A fun resource for Vikings is this BBC site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/vikings/who_were_the_vikings/.  I let my children play around on it for an hour the other day.  I don't know if they learned anything but they sure had fun!