Market Place Activity - How did the design of castles change over time?

This beautifully illustrated market place activity has been designed to help students understand how and why the design of castles changed during the Medieval period. It looks at the arms race between castle builders and defenders and explains how each side tried to outwit the other through changes in design and tactic. This fun and interactive lesson has been tried, tested and refined in the classroom over many years by experienced teachers. It is suitable for the full ability range and includes additional activities to the market place task, which can be mixed and matched to suit your curriculum time and students.

There are a number of different ways to deliver a market place activity. This resource has a mixture of activities that are designed to be a proactive lesson to get students up, moving around and working collaboratively. If you are not comfortable with that, they can always get them to pass the information slides around the classroom. The slides themselves are beautifully illustrated and are worthwhile printing off in colour and putting into a plastic wallet

When you purchase this resource, you will be able to download a twenty one page PowerPoint Presentation. It includes aims, objectives, differentiated outcomes, starters, plenaries, tasks, activities, information slides, historical sources, pictures, diagrams, templates, sample answers, feedback sheets and a homework exercise. Once students have completed the market place activity, they can complete an extended written answer to the core question or have a go at a heads and tails activity to help summarise what they have learnt. Some schools who have trialled this resource have instead got their students to produce a mind map summarisinng the changes to castle design over time. For further information, please see the preview slides.

The aims and objectives of this lesson are:

Theme: How did the Normans keep control?
Know: How did castle design change over time?
Understand: Why did the design of Norman castles have to change?
Evaluate: What were the strengths and weaknesses of the new designs?
Skills: Collaboration, Cause, Consequence, Change & Continuity.

WILF – What Am I Looking For?
Identify & describe: How did castle design change over time?
Explain: Why did the design of Norman castles change?
Analyse: What were the strengths and weaknesses of these changes?