CASTLES AND ROYALTY WEEK: PK-3

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Ana’s Blog
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Almost all little girls seem to love princesses, and Aria is no exception to this rule, so I knew that we needed to spend at least one week this year learning all about medieval times and fairy tale royalty. In fact, the timing of this week coincided well with Halloween and our costume choices of being knights and royalty. I also introduced Aria to my favorite kid’s movie this week, Beauty and the Beast, in incorporated a few fun activities related to that! Aria had a blast, especially when we involved friends.

To start the week, we made a castle out of an Amazon box. I even made a working drawbridge, which was a huge feat for someone as engineering- challenged as myself! We painted the castle and talked about ramparts and drawbridges. We went through terms related to castles, and we colored coloring pages. We also did a few counting and shapes worksheets relating to castles and princesses.

For our knight day, we made a tunic out of a pillow case, decorated our own shield for the front, and made our own crest. We made a sword out of a pizza box and aluminum foil, and Aria played with a bag of knights that I found at Hobby Lobby. I also built her a small castle diorama, which I intended to have her help me with but was far too complicated for a toddler. Having the diorama did give us a good visual for talking about parts of a castle, however!
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For our princess day, we watched Beauty and the Beast. Then, we had friends over and had a Beauty and the Beast tea party with mini grilled cheese sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, and chocolate covered strawberries. I served the girls warm apple cider rather than tea, and they loved pouring “tea” for each other. The girls made “mirrors” in honor of the mirror of the movie, which were simply cardboard cut in the shape of a mirror and covered in aluminum foil. They covered them in stickers and glitter glue to make the mirrors look jeweled. Aria thought the whole experience was amazing and spent the rest of the week asking for a tea party.

Other than Beauty and the Beast, we watched Little Einsteins Good and Bad Knight episode, which is absolutely amazing at teaching parts of a castle. Sofia the First is great when talking about royalty, but really, there are so many great princess movies to choose from. I also highly recommend the book The Paper Bag Princess, particularly if you have a girl, as she is such an amazing example for young girls.
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Hope you have as much fun doing this week as we did! Next time you get a big box in the mail, try making a castle and sword and see where imagination takes your kids!