Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Capture the enchantment of castles, knights and royalty with these Medieval inspired projects. Young children are just beginning to understand the difference between fantasy and reality. Through imaginary play with these art projects, children can act out both the familiar and fictional characters.
Create a Castle
Every kingdom needs a castle. Use your imagination and turn recycled materials into a creative kingdom.
- Take a cardboard carton (large box) and shape crenelations (notches) by cutting with scissors along the top edges. Using heavy glue, attach paper towel tubes on each of the four corners to serve as towers.
- Make peaked roofs from small circles of construction paper rolled into cones. (After cutting the circle, make a slit up to a center point; roll the cone and fasten with tape).
- Flags, made from construction paper, can be glued to toothpicks and inserted into the tower cones.
- Use scissors (or a craft knife – Adult Use Only) to cut windows and a portcullis (an arched-shaped door). As you cut the doorway, leave the bottom uncut so that it (the cardboard flap) falls flat like a drawbridge.
- A length of heavy string attached to the flap and to the castle itself will allow the child to raise the bridge up and down.
- To replicate the iron grating, cut pieces from a plastic berry basket and tape these in place in the door and window openings.
- Paint the entire castle using tempera paints.
- Create a moat around your castle by using blue cellophane wrap that can be easily purchased in your supermarket.
Coat of Arms
Back in Medieval times, a coat of arms told all you met who your family was and if you were friend or foe. Little knights can carry their coats of arms, and even the maidens can carry one for recognition.
- Cut out a simple shield-like shape from cardboard.
- Make a handle using a 1” by 4” strip of cardboard and glue or staple this to the back of the shield, allowing room to slip in the child’s hand.
- On the front, divide the shield into sections using a black marker. Place the family name at the top. Together with your child, look through pictures of your family and have the child choose some to use. If you do not want to use the real photos, make photocopies.
- Encourage children to choose photos that have great meaning to the family name, parents, siblings, pets, events, etc. Glue these into a section.
- In the other section(s) children may want to clip magazine pictures of fun things related to families. Another idea is to have the child create his own drawings using art materials (crayons, markers, colored pencils).
A Crown of Jewels
Let the children’s sense of fantasy carry them back to Medieval times as they make and decorate regal crowns and maiden’s hats.
- For the girls, form a large sheet of heavy-duty construction paper (15” x 24”) into a cone and staple the edges. Add a piece of sheet fabric or scarf to the top point and let this drape down.
- For the boys, using poster board cut a large strip to fit around the child’s head. Make it wide enough to cut out crown points.
- Each child can decorate their royalty hat with paints, sequins, faux jewels, feathers and so on.
Young children love to play, especially when play activities involve "make-believe." Pretend play is not only fun, but helps children build their social and emotional skills. The art projects above make use of little hands and fingers which help develop fine motor skills needed in life.
 |
 |
 |
 |
