Happy History Lesson: A Day at the Fair

This weekend, my kids and I went to the Renaissance Festival.  It was perfect timing as this month one of our homeschool learning units is England (Kings, Knights, Castles, Royal Wedding--its actually a very fun and history laden theme!)  So what a perfect way to start ...

Though held annually near our house, it always falls during tax season, so we had never been before.  This year, a client of my husband's gave him 6 tickets as a thank you gift and so we decided we would give it a go.  The girls met Twig, The Fairy Queen, upon entering the Fair. She gave them special stones to take home and put in the fairy gardens we have been making...

Next stop, getting flower wreaths for the Ladies to wear in our hair... aren't they pretty?

Then, since" the Ladies" had flowers, it was time to get hats for "the Lords"...

A jester hat and a crown. These will be great for future dress up fun!  Then, we were off to pay the facepainter a visit...

The boys helper, Becca, accompanied us. She reminds us of Giselle of Enchanted; and she sings too!

We watched a show called "Unbalanced". They looked pretty balanced to us. What do you think?

We laid a blanket out under some shade trees and had a snack. The baby let us know she did not want Gerber puffs and opted for something different instead...cookies. If this photo had a thought bubble it would read: "I'm sure glad my teeth all grew in early. Yum".

Sean had a different idea once we layed down the sheet...

While we were site seeing around the fair, the girls stayed in style, riding in the wagon and holding an umbrella to shade the sun...

Here is a picture of me with the girls...I'm usually the picture taker so it was nice that Becca offered to take some of me and the kids.

There were several performers and one had a "magic ball". He let Timothy have it and he started straight away trying to duplicate the trips the performer did.

For us, the Renaissance Fair was a chance to spend a day outside, to hear music (dulcimers, flutes, harpischords), to talk about history (what life would have been like in this era--what would have been the same; what would have been different), identifying characters we saw (royal court, jesters, minstrels, etc)
and the kids had a great time. Do you have a favorite field trip or local event that you go to? Tell me about it!