K/ is for Kings, Queens, Knights and Castles: Themed Activities

Kindness was my original theme....So please complete an act of kindness today with that in mind.  It makes the world a brighter place and lights up the lives of the recipient and the giver alike.

However, the theme of Kings, Queens, Knights and Castles....lots of /K/ sounds!...cannot be kept for another day!  So let's see what kinds of concepts we can creatively come up with!

STORY DRAMA:  Dramatic dress up or puppet play based on life in a castle.  It can be completely their own ideas or can be a dramatization of a story such as Cinderella, Snow White, Frozen, The King and I or the Snow Queen or of a short story like The Princess and the Pea or The Monkey King.

SOCIAL: Court with the Queen.  Have a tea party with the family or stuffed animals.

FINE MOTOR: Build a castle using sand or lego or blocks. Create a moat, a moving drawbridge and a rock path and garden too if you want to go all out on this project!  For summer, you can make the castle out of ice!

HISTORICAL CONNECTIONS: Connect someone with a love of horses to the knights who ride them and the kings and queens they serve.  Incorporate a study into the medieval times.

CRAFT: Make crowns from items such as cardstock, aluminum foil or tissue paper and add sparkles or gem stones or designs that you draw or paint on the crown(s).  You can add a cape and scepter too!

SONG: Learn the history and lyrics of "God Save the King/Queen".  Another song is called "There is clapping in the castle" that is a gross motor activity song (clap, jump, twirl, dance).  Other than that, Bible based songs would be "He is the King of Kings" and "Who's the King of the Jungle?"

SCIENCE: Learn the science of early inventions such as the catapult, drawbridge, cannon and try to build your own with popsicle sticks, elastics, tubes, string and so forth.

GROSS MOTOR: Capture the flag, archery and target practice are games that first come to mind. Juggling, jousting and dancing also seem relevant.

COAT OF ARMS: You can research and create a meaningful coat of arms that would represent your family or you can make one with cut out pictures or even just patterns of shapes.  This is a good activity for paper and pencil but can also utilize a variety of materials around the home.  A variation on it would be to create a flag to fly or a string of banners.

MATH: Count crown jewels and sort by colour, shape or size.

CRAFT: Glue sand and sparkles onto a castle picture to make it into a sand castle!

WRITING:  Keeping fairy tales in mind, write a story of your own beginning with "Once upon a time in a land far, far away...."

READING: Design index vocabulary cards with key words related to castle life to practice reading skills.  Choose a random card and put that word into a sentence or spell it  out loud. 

SPEAKING:  Go around the circle and create a fairytale story with each person adding one sentence at a time.  Can you keep it sequential and sensible or did it end up being a jumble of funny twists and turns?

LISTENING; Settle in for some great stories and imagine these people and lands whether modern, ancient or imaginary and enjoy the creative outlet.

Hope these initial thoughts trigger additional ideas on how to build up literacy skills using this topic of interest in many children's lives.  I am sure it is easy to find additional crossword puzzles, I Spy puzzles, colouring pages and more online as well. 

As a bonus mention, Usborne has some great books if you have a keen interest including, The adventures of King Arthur, the Kings and Queens sticker book, The Snow Queen, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and several books on knights and castles including wipe clean books, colouring and sticker books as well as a handbook on what it was like to train to be a knight.


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