As part of our homeschool history for kids unit on middle ages for kids we explored Medieval Art & Music by learning about famous artists Giotto, creating a medieval tapestry, creating our own psaltery, learning to draw a castle, and reading some excellent books.
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Medieval Artist Giotto
Favorite Resources
Learning about Famous Artist Giotto for Kids
Giotto was an Italian painter in the 1300s. He is known for adding depth to pictures by adding the background and for making his people look more life-like by adding emotions. Giotto mainly painted frescos. A fresco is a painting done on wet plaster; the color really sinks in and give the color a glowing look to it.
Egg Based Paint for Medieval Artwork
Giotto used an egg based tempera paint. So we made our own egg based paint for our artwork.
First Goofy crushed up some chalk using a rock. The rock was very slow going so Mommy helped out with a rolling pin and that went super fast!
We mixed up 2 egg yokes with 2 TAB water. Then we added it to the chalk and we had our paint. (We used a muffin tin for the paint)
Unlike other artists of his day, Giotto used bright colors in his paintings. He was also the first major artist to convey emotions in his painting.
Giotto Medieval Times Artwork
Notice the yellow hallow around people’s heads. Giotto painted scenes from the Bible and like others from his time used hallows to depict saints.
Additional Medieval Art & Music Activities
Drawing Castles
We used Draw and Write Through History to learn how to draw a castle, catapult, knight, princess, dragon, and a falcon.
Medieval Tapestries for Toddlers and Preschoolers
In Medieval times people wove with wool, but we didn’t have any around here. So we used paper to make a Medieval Woven Placemat. During the time period people also created amazing tapestries which created amazing woven pictures. These were hung on castle walls to make the cold stone rooms pretty and warmer
Medieval Music
We made a psaltery. A psaltery was a medieval musical instrument that was played at banquets or for the royal court in the castle. You can see a video hearing our psaltery.
Medieval Family Read Alouds
We Read The Knight at Dawn and the accompanying Fact Tracker Book Knights and Castles that explains more about the time period. These short and sweet books contain sketched illustrations every couple pages and are great read alouds for ages 5-9. Children in 2nd grade and beyond will be able to read them by themselves.
