Sally: William was related to the King of England, who had just died. So William thought he should be the next King of England. But a man called Harold was actually crowned the next King. So there was trouble ahead. During a castle siege, the people in the castle could become so hungry that they would eat rats and the leather that their shoes were made from. Vegetables don't sound so bad now, do they?

In 1070, William the Conqueror started to build Britain's first stone castle - the Tower of London. Sally: Each knight family had a coat of arms: a special picture that told a story about their family and the place they came from. Everything in the coat of arms is like a little story and means something special. The video includes the need to build castles on hills or near a water supply. This could be used as a way into pupils being able to understand some of the physical features highlighted in the curriculum (beach, cliff, coast, forest, hill, mountain, sea, ocean, river, Sally: Okay, sure. Let's go right to the end of the corridor and find out about William the Conqueror.Beneath the nobles were the knights. They also owned some land, given to them by the nobles and so they had to do what the nobles told them, including fighting for them. At the very bottom were the ordinary people, peasants . To describe this topic to a friend, I would tell that people in the middle ages used specific building to protect themselves and they also used to train knights at an early age to fight in battles and protect people. You could introduce your castles and knights theme by reading an engaging story with children, like the lovely Twinkl Originals e-book, Knights and Dragons, Unite!. This is sure to inspire children to come up with their own ideas, before you move on to interactive tasks and themed play. Top ideas for kings and queens activities for early years: Sally: Not knights, which was a male role. But there were very powerful women, who led armies and controlled battles.

Sally: Yes and scary. Many people died in battle and so it was very risky. On the 14th of October 1066, they fought a very famous battle - the Battle of Hastings. William's army met Harold's army...but during the fighting Harold was killed. Some people say he died by an arrow to the eye. But the truth is, we don't actually know. So William's army won the battle and he became the new King. Fantasy worlds are especially great for inspiring creative writing and role-play. This theme can be used to support a range of EYFS specific learning areas, like aiding spelling and vocabulary for Literacy aims, or helping children take an imaginative approach to tasks for Expressive Arts and Design. We also have a great range of themed Maths worksheets.

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I think the title ‘’ Knights and Castles ‘’ is a good title because it summarizes the content of the book to a large extent. The teacher could ask questions about castles such as ‘what are they made of? ‘What are castles for?’