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Personal Coat Of Arms

My Grade 8's have been studying the Medieval Period in Social Studies.  As we were looking at the Magna Carta, several students asked about the Coats of Arms around the outside of the document.  They were quite interested in them, so we ended up researching the Coat of Arms of our school's namesake.  That's when I decided to have my students create one of their own.

 Several students researched their own family crest and used symbols and images they found from their ancestors.  Others included pictures of things that were important to them.

 For the assignment, I asked them to include at least 4 symbols that represent themselves in some way.  In addition to the Coat of Arms, they needed to include a write-up explaining the significance of each image.


I think next year I will use this activity as a beginning of the year "get to know you" activity.  It can easily be adapted to fit any grade.  Even Kindergarten students could draw pictures and talk about why they are important.  I had an International Student (from Korea) in my class during this unit, and she loved this assignment.  It let her express herself to the rest of the class, and it let me get a better understanding of who she was and what she valued.  Overall, I was really impressed by the quality of work I received from my kids!


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Comments

  1. Anonymous15 April 2014 at 17:52

    Your posts are beautiful and I love coming back to your blog every time a new post comes up on bloglovin. I've nominated your blog for the Liebster Award :) See the details at bookandbliss.blogspot.com/2014/04/share-love.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Diane Wiens13 November 2016 at 23:09

    Absolutely! Thanks for visiting my site :)
    -Diane

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown3 October 2018 at 06:19

    Dear Diane, I teach ESL to 5th graders and we are studying life in medieval times. Your posts inspired me to have a similar project! I even showed my students the images you posted and they loved them.
    Thank you so much for sharing such amazing idea!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ms. Elaine8 August 2022 at 06:47

    Hi - I'm preparing some slides for a teacher induction and was wondering if I could use one of your coat of arms images, I'll be sure to source your site - Thanks for letting me know! And thank you for sharing these ideas :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Diane Wiens8 August 2022 at 08:20

      Hi there. Feel free to share the image with a credit back to my blog. Thanks for visiting!

      Delete

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