As a culmination of their exploration of the Wars of the Roses, English Reformation, and Elizabethan era, the Middle School feasted and reveled in Elizabethan style. Each student researched a person alive at the time and came to the banquet as that person. Imagine a table where Oda Nobunaga, Akbar the Great, Ivan the Terrible, and Good Queen Bess herself could sit and chat about ruling their countries! Also in attendance were famous writers, such as Shakespeare and Jonson, scientists, such as Bacon and Galileo, other royalty, such as Catherine de Medici, Mary, Queen of Scots, nobility such as Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh, artist Levina Terrlinc, musician Hans Leo Hassler, and more.
Students contributed food, music, and poetry to the banquet, too. Each student created a dish based on an “Elizabethan” recipe–a lot of nutmeg and cinnamon! Students also played music on chimes and recorder to entertain each other, and each student recited a work of poetry, mostly from Shakespeare’s sonnets and Romeo and Juliet, which the class was finishing that same week.
Between feasting, dancing, listening to music and poetry, learning some fun facts about Elizabethan times, and chatting with famous table-mates, the students had a wonderful Thursday afternoon. Huzzah!