MEDIEVAL KINDERGARTEN, A STUDENT-LED PROJECT

My students had a blast pretending to live in a castle!

Since the beginning of the year, many of them were excited to make castles in the blocks area during their choice time. So I jumped on the theme as a way to teach some of our academic goals. I was inspired by Mrs. Meyers Kindergarten, who also did a castle unit with her kindergarteners.

Of course they needed medieval costumes, so the kids made princess hats and crowns, noticing that they were some of the 3D shapes we learned in math.

They also made paper chains and had a lot of fun measuring the length of their massive paper chain!

We counted each chain. They soon realized that we could count them by 5s and 10s to make the counting go faster!

They divvied up the responsibilities for making the castle among themselves. Some worked on the chain while others worked on the drawbridge. Another person created a blueprint of the castle. 

For a little extra optional fun, the kids did some castle crafts. I bought this paper craft from TPT so that they could make a castle, and this one to make dragons. Thankfully I had some parent volunteers to help with the cutting!

During story time, we read a bunch of fairy tales. Their favorite picture book may have been The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch. The ending was a bit silly, but the kids enjoyed pointing out all of the architectural castle features.

In the blocks area, they worked in pairs to create a mini castle. It gave them a chance to think about what elements serve a purpose in the design of a building and what are just for decoration.

Using the blocks center with this play-based unit gave new life to our play centers, which sometimes get boring for kids when they've played the same games over and over.

I now have a literary set available on TPT!

You can use these leveled readers during your Reader's Workshop time to integrate this project theme into your literacy block.

WHAT YOU GET:

☞ LEVEL C & D READERS WITH RUNNING RECORDS
I both color and black and white. It's formatted so that you can print it either double-sided or single-sided.

☞ CASTLE WORDS
These are made for your Pocket Chart.

☞ CASTLE WRITING PRACTICE
This worksheet will help your students practice their handwriting by copying the words from the book.

☞ CASTLE SHAPES
This worksheet reinforces basic kindergarten geometry skills. They are encouraged to draw a castle with lots of rectangles and triangles. Then they count and record their shapes below their drawing.

☞ BONUS: Castle Directed Drawing!
I illustrated this custom castle directed drawing for you to use with your class. This is great for an art project or brain break while using whiteboards.

Who doesn't love a freebie?

Get one of my castle readers for FREE here.