Our homeschool notebook: Shrewsbury Renaissance Faire

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Shrewsbury Renaissance Faire

Our family had the opportunity to attend the Shrewsbury Renaissance Faire today! Even better than just attending was that we got to dress the part(s). My Mother-in-law is a vendor there, and therefore has us come and dress up too! We get to come in as her guests which means we get in free, we just have to dress up and play like we are living in renaissance times. She made all the kids' costumes, and I borrowed one of her dresses. Now we are planning to get our own costumes and do this for halloween, so we have our own next year.

It is so fun to go to this festival/faire. All the sounds, language, merriment, "play", and whatnot are all meant to make you feel as if you have truly stepped back in time to the time of Shakespeare, and the Elizabethian time. There are people dressed up in all sorts of characters from that time period. We saw pirates, knights, royalty, commoners, jesters, you name it! It was so fun to see all the costumes, and hear people talking in the language of the time as well.

The kids have looked forward to going to this all month, and it didn't disappoint! They all had such a great time. It was also a great living history lesson for April as she jumps into her Shakespeare class this year! They were also excited watching Daddy make all their swords the week before. He made them out of wood.

Our family ready to play at the faire.

Aric, a "commoner" with a sword!

April, a princess in her "Merida" (from Brave) style dress.

Alex, who looked much like a peasant child by the time we were done. He was covered in dirt, shaved ice stains, and barefoot at the end of the day.

Aaron loved looking like a knight.

There was much to see including jousting, dancing, music, and magic shows. I love this picture of the boys watching a pretty spectacular magic show. They sat through the whole thing. It was pretty fun.

A living history of armor was set up.

Aric wanted to give it a go, and try some things on. He managed to get the gloves on (don't know if that's what they are really called). Those things themselves were heavy!

Walking around wasn't easy with the littlest one, but it was fun!

Isn't he just so cute! I loved how cute he looked in his garb. It was even cooler that the whole thing is out in the middle of trees, and hills. This one section was really forest-y.