Free Middle School Social Studies Lesson Plans Kidipede - History for Kids home page NEW! Kidipede's pages organized according to California state standards Teachers' guides for what to do in class (religion, philosophy, environment...) Scavenger hunt through the site for certain information (lists of things to search for here) Have the students put together questions for their peers to answer. Create a History Museum with each kid making an artifact; invite their parents for museum night. Put together a class newspaper about China (for instance), with creative sports pages, food pages, political news and religious news. Put together what was happening all over Europe, Asia and Africa in a particular time period (use the maps section). Have students take different sides of a war (the Crusades, the Punic Wars, the American Revolutionary War, the Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian War, the Hundred Years' War) and hold peace talks to try to settle their differences. Do hands-on craft projects like spinning or and weaving a piece of cloth.
10 Completely Uncanny Superstitions From The Middle Ages Weird Stuff In the pre-scientific Middle Ages, the world was at the same time both fascinating and frightening. In the absence of proper knowledge, people had no choice but to fall back on their own imaginations to make sense of the myriad natural phenomena around them. The result was a world where everything seemed magical, a place teeming with angels and demons, fairies and goblins, elves, gnomes, and witches. This list takes us inside the medieval mind and the fears and superstitions through which it tried to explain the world. 10 The Sea In The Sky For this story, we are indebted to English chronicler Gervase of Tilbury and his work Otia Imperiala. For proof, Gervase offers an episode that took place in an English village. Another tale concerns a merchant who accidentally dropped his knife while out at sea. 9 Omens Of Charlemagne’s Death The Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in A.D. 800. 8 Magonia 7 Changelings 6 The Royal Touch 5 The Wild Man Of Orford
Middle Ages for Kids: Daily Life History >> Middle Ages for Kids Costumes of the Middle Ages by Albert Kretschmer Life in the Country The majority of people living during the Middle Ages lived in the country and worked as farmers. Usually there was a local lord who lived in a large house called a manor or a castle. The peasants worked hard all year long. Life in the City City life was very different from country life, but it wasn't much easier. What were their homes like? Although we often think of pictures of large castles when we think of the Middle Ages, most people lived in small one or two room homes. What did they wear? Most peasants wore plain clothing made from heavy wool to keep them warm during the winter. In order to separate the nobles from the peasants, laws were passed called "sumptuary" laws. What did they eat? Peasants during the Middle Ages did not have a lot of variety in their food. Did they go to school? Very few people attended school in the Middle Ages. There were some schools run by the church.
7 Unusual Ancient Medical Techniques - History Lists For thousands of years, medical practitioners clung to the belief that sickness was merely the result of a little “bad blood.” Bloodletting probably began with the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians, but it didn’t become common practice until the time of classical Greece and Rome. Influential physicians like Hippocrates and Galen maintained that the human body was filled with four basic substances, or “humors”—yellow bile, black bile, phlegm and blood—and these needed to be kept in balance to maintain proper health. With this in mind, patients with a fever or other ailment were often diagnosed with an overabundance of blood. To restore bodily harmony, their doctor would simply cut open a vein and drain some of their vital fluids into a receptacle. While it could easily result in accidental death from blood loss, phlebotomy endured as a common medical practice well into the 19th century. Humanity’s oldest form of surgery is also one of its most gruesome.
Home [CRF: Educating About Immigration] Bloodletting Ancient Greek painting on a vase, showing a physician (iatros) bleeding a patient Bloodletting (or blood-letting) is the withdrawal of blood from a patient to cure or prevent illness and disease. Bloodletting was based on an ancient system of medicine in which blood and other bodily fluids were regarded as "humors" that had to remain in proper balance to maintain health. In the ancient world[edit] A chart showing the parts of the body to be bled for different diseases, c.1310-1320 "Bleeding" a patient to health was modeled on the process of menstruation. The Talmud recommended a specific day of the week and days of the month for bloodletting, and similar rules, though less codified, can be found among Christian writings advising which saints' days were favourable for bloodletting. Post 10th century[edit] Ioannis Sculteti, Armamentium Chirugiae, 1693 — Diagrammed transfusion of sheep's blood Scarificator, showing depth adjustment bar Diagram of scarificator, showing depth adjustment
The Middle Ages: A Comprehensive Overview of Europe, 500-1500 The Middle Ages were a thousand-year period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance in which the foundations of modern European culture were laid. Many consider them a “dark age” of ignorance, but the educational, legal, religious, and social institutions that still influence much of Western culture were created in this period. Scroll down to learn more about the Middle Ages. Feudalism and the Feudal System The feudal system of the Middle Ages was introduced to England following the invasion and conquest of the country by William I, The Conqueror. The feudal system had been used in France by the Normans from the time they first settled there in about 900AD. A simple plan showing how the Feudal System works The King: Leader of the Feudal System The King was in complete control under the feudal system (at least nominally). Barons: Executors of the Feudal System Barons leased land from the King that was known as a manor. Knights Villeins Crime and Medieval Punishment Ordeal by Fire
A Brief History of Bloodletting - History in the Headlines The ancient practice of bloodletting might offer cardiovascular benefits to obese people with metabolic syndrome, a new study published today in the journal BMC Medicine suggests. As the medical community contemplates its revival, explore this long-abandoned procedure’s age-old history, from its early roots to its use on figures such as George Washington and Marie-Antoinette. Several thousand years ago, whether you were an Egyptian with migraines or a feverish Greek, chances are your doctor would try one first-line treatment before all others: bloodletting. Considered one of medicine’s oldest practices, bloodletting is thought to have originated in ancient Egypt. In medieval Europe, bloodletting became the standard treatment for various conditions, from plague and smallpox to epilepsy and gout. As hairdressers lanced veins in an attempt to cure Europeans’ ailments, in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica bloodletting was believed to serve a very different purpose.
Renaissance -- Out of the Middle Ages In the feudal structure of the Middle Ages, the nobles who lived in the country provided the king with protection in exchange for land. Peasants worked the land for the nobles, for which they received protection and their own small parcels of land. These rural peasants worked from sunup to sundown, but even the nobles had few creature comforts. In feudal cities, where there was a small middle-class population, life was a little easier and individuals had the freedom to pursue whatever trade or industry they liked. In the late Middle Ages, when the threat of invasion from barbarians had lessened, people left the country for towns and cities so they could engage in more profitable pursuits. The Plague Begins Life in the city was soon to change drastically. The Plague's Effect on the Economy The population decrease caused by the plague led to an economic depression.
Malleus Maleficarum The Malleus Maleficarum[2] (commonly rendered into English as "Hammer of [the] Witches";[3] Der Hexenhammer in German) is a treatise on the prosecution of witches, written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer, a German Catholic clergyman. The book was first published in Speyer, Germany, in 1487.[4] James Sprenger is also often attributed as an author, but some scholars now believe that he became associated with the Malleus Maleficarum largely as a result of Kramer's wish to lend his book as much official authority as possible.[5] The main purpose of the Malleus was to systematically refute arguments claiming that witchcraft does not exist, to discredit those who expressed skepticism about its reality, to claim that those who practised witchcraft were more often women than men, and to educate magistrates on the procedures that could find them out and convict them. Background[edit] In 1484 Heinrich Kramer had made one of the first attempts at prosecuting alleged witches in the Tyrol region. Notes
Medieval Food Medieval Food Medieval foods and diets depended much on the class of the individual. For those living in the manor house, there was a wide range of foods available. Medieval peasants, on the other hand, had a much simpler diet available to them. Pottage was often favored over bread, because it did not require the grains that the miller guarded closely. Medieval diets lacked vitamins A, C and D and were not high in calories, making the regular drinking of ale a necessity for most. The Black Death A Great Plague killed nearly half of the people of Europe during in the fourteenth century. A plague is a widespread illness. The plague was also known as "the Black Death" because of the black spots that formed on the skin of diseased people. The sickness apparently began in Central Asia. The first sign of the plague was often an ache in the limbs. The swiftness of the disease, the enormous pain and the grotesque appearance of its victims served to make the plague especially terrifying. Europeans were susceptible to disease because many people lived in crowded surroundings in an era when personal hygiene was not considered important. Some Europeans believed the plague was a sign from God. The Great Plague transformed European society. The Great Plague continued to affect cities from time to time for hundreds of years. Download this lesson as Microsoft Word file or as an Adobe Acrobat file. Listen as Mr.