This evening I was reading through some AHS threads when my 10 year old son came over to see what I was doing. I had never shared my interest in heraldry with anyone, it has always been a solitary pursuit. The threads I’ve been reading on this forum are rich in color and interest to me, though I assumed that it seems dry and uninteresting to anyone else. I decided to show him some of the art that heraldry has to offer and he was immediately drawn to it. So I showed him the arms I’ve been working on that I have posted in another thread. His enthusiasm for it really surprised me. He wanted to know where we could put it and if he could hang it in his room. He enjoyed looking at the other arms, especially the McClurg arms by Saigal, he loved the dragon.

It got me to thinking, if there were a community ed class for kids to create their coat of arms, I wonder if kids would be drawn to it. I know that I have always been entranced by knights and their shields since I was a kid. Have any of you ever seen a program for kids to learn about heraldry and create an actual shield with their own arms on it?

I’m curious if there is a pre-existing curriculum that one could model a community ed class for children after. I’m thinking they would learn some basic history of what the arms were used for, what a heralds responsibilities were, and the basic divisions, charges, ordinaries and tinctures. Then they could design their own arms. After they have an idea drawn up, they could paint it on an actual shield. I’m thinking like a 12x18" piece of wood cut to shape.

Some of the basic ordinaries could be drawn on, but in leu of actual drawing talent, charges like animals and shapes could be stamped on to keep it fast, easy, and still look cool, not like a 10 year old drew it.

Does that sound like anything you have ever heard of before?

Well, in Cub Scouts many decades ago (middle 1950’s) there was a project one month to construct/create shields & helmets on a distinctly anachronistic approach to King Arthur & his knights.  Mine was a rattlesnake on a white (cardboard) field, & the helm was a round ice cream container covered in tinfoil.  Not great heraldry, but a way to create some interest.

More seriously, the tricky parts would be to diplomatically steer a course avoiding the heraldry mills & faux-nobiliary gong-mongering.  For kids, encouraging originality would seem the best, & most fun, approach.  Our more serious "adult" approach, e.g. prolonged experimentation, the refrigerator test & such like, would likely exceed an active kid’s attention span.  (For that matter, they sometimes exceed the attention span of some of our more eager newcomers )

For what it’s worth, I think I was getting ahead of myself. Probably getting ahead of my son as well. But I think that I’ll work with him a bit and let him come up with a design. It could be a fun bonding thing, or a complete disaster. I think I’ll try it.

I can picture a group of boys coming up with some pretty original ideas though. Baseball bats, hockey masks, Underarmour logos, all mixed in with dragons, lions and swords. Talk about anachronistic…

Go for it!  And even from a heraldic perspective, given the "why" behind the whole execise, the bonding between geneations is more important than a given day’s artistic outcomes.

There is a heraldry education package for ages 9-13 here (I haven’t looked at it, but it’s a start):

www.gg.ca/pdf/Heraldry-Kit-EN.pdf

And, if you or your son would like to print out and use any of the renditions of my arms for your personal use while exploring heraldry—you have my permission to do so.  (you assuredly have many options, but I wanted to give that one to you as well)

The Royal Heraldry Society of Canada (RHSC) website has a "Heraldry 4 Kids" page: http://www.heraldry.ca/main.php?pg=l7

Also, I posed this back on 23-Jul-2012:

steven harris;94800 wrote:

After reading The Magic Tree House #2: The Knight at Dawn, and spending a day at the nearby Higgins Armory Museum – my 6½-year old daughter Caroline asked if she could “draw a shield” of her own.  Absolutely!

I gave her no coaching whatsoever except for telling her that she could put anything on it that she wanted and that it could be any color/s that she liked – I showed her the Society’s Member Armorial to illustrate the point.  I drew her a heater-shaped shield and let her go to work.  This is what she came back with:

 

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/2505/sarms.png

 

Arms: Purpure a garden rose Gules slipped Vert palewise

Crest: a duckling naiant proper

 

Besides the tincture violation (which could easily be solved with a simple argent pale) and the omittance of the torse – I think that she did a splendid job!  At any rate, her first arms are magnitudes better than he father’s first arms were!

 

It’s worth noting that the duckling crest comes from her stuffed duck – named Puddles – that has been her constant companion since around the time of her first birthday.

Thanks for the links! And thank you Kathy for your generous offer.

Steven, I love your daughters arms. The sleeping bunny is a neat addition.

Feel free to play with my arms as well if you think it would be helpful.  The difference between the very formal rendition by Don Pottinger & Guy Power’s playful version I now use as my avatar may help illustrate the wide latitude availqable to the individual artist.  (see my page in our Members Roll)

There are others in the Members Roll that would also help make this point, as well or better; I doubt if any of us would mind your using them, but of course I can’t speak for everyone.

My friends and I growing up had a neighborhood pack of mini munchkin armigers in the early 80’s… my dad helped me stencil a black avian on my copper colored shield and he painted a little heart on my younger sister’s. :D

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