Knights and Samurai

This last week in history class, we had a couple of special guests. An English Knight and a Japanese Samurai from the late middle ages!

A friend's brothers had spent some time studying the era and had made costumes for last Halloween that were as close to the real thing as cardboard and spray paint would allow. They answered questions and showed the kids the different kinds of armor and weapons from the different knights as the other moms and I asked questions from the lesson that included things like; "So what was the Samurai's armor made of?" and "What was the code of conduct that a Knight had to follow to be included in the tournaments?".

The class ended with a nice long demonstration of the different fighting techniques. It was all talk of lances, long bows, which material makes the best arrow, what the pieces of the Samurai's costume were for, and how long it takes to get into a suit of armor. There was quite a bit of talk of cardboard armor construction too... but that was all part of the fun.

Then of course, we had to have a battle.

Some knights were more of the participating kind...

...others just looked on for the entertainment, but it was deffinetly a lesson to remember!