A castle fit for a princess

Little 1's new topic at school is 'Dungeons and Dragons' which sounds like a whole lot of fun, the school newsletter said they will be dressing up as knights and princesses and having a medieval banquet during the term as well as going on a school trip the week after next to a real castle for the day. Little 1 loved her trip to Dunster castle back in the summer and was fascinated as we looked around and asked lots of questions so I know she will love this school trip. I can see them making dragons and decorating shields this term already, her school is really creative and has some great creative ideas and lots of fun with the children's learning, Little 1 loves her school, she has so much fun there.

Over the Christmas holidays Little 1 was set a small bit of homework, the task was to make a small shoe box sized castle to take in on the first day of term, they could be as imaginative as they liked. I do quite a bit of creative things with the Little ones at home as I am the one who is here all the time and Daddy misses out a lot as he has to work, so armed with a pile of post Christmas cardboard I suggested the two of them set to work and build her castle.

Daddy obviously isn't used to working with a 5 year old and his elaborate idea of how the castle should look and the way he wanted to build it was swiftly undermined by Little 1 who declared that it would be pink and purple with no less than 5 turrets (as she was 5 of course). I did have a bit of a giggle as they worked because Daddy really wanted it to look good and do it himself so that it all lined up and was perfectly cut out while Little 1 was insistent that she do the cutting out, wiggly lines and all! It was her homework wasn't it!!

Soon they had constructed a rough castle, a box with a drawbridge and 5 loo roll turrets poking out the corners and one in the middle. We had some pink spotty card from something that I suggested would make good roofs for the turrets and some coloured foam that she could use for battlements and windows etc so they then set to work cutting that out ready to stick on after Little 1 had painted the box. Little 1 did well cutting up the foam but I had to tell Daddy off for straightening up the lines when she wasn't looking afterwards!

True to her word Little 1 wanted to use pink, purple and silver paint to decorate her castle which luckily I had and mixed with pva glue to help it stick. It didn't really stick all that well to the box, we probably should have covered it in paper first or turned the box inside out and it didn't help that she insisted on washing the brush between every stroke so the paint ended up in some thinned down runny mess but oh well she was happy with the result and enjoyed using up the paint on some paper too.

Little 2 did some painting too, she had started making her own box castle as well but it had mostly consisted of cutting up whatever she could get her hands on so there wasn't anything for her to paint, she didn't mind and got creative painting circles and rainbows on paper instead.

Once the main castle was dry Little 1 and Daddy taped on the turret roofs and glued on the battlements and windows as well as ensuring the drawbridge worked using some ribbon and some carefully placed holes. They also used a bit of Little 1's painted rainbow paper to decorate the turrets and cover up all the tape.

...... and voila, a castle fit for a princess.