Tapestry of Grace Co-op: Castles and Knights

We've been learning castles and knights in our study of Medieval Times.  At co-op the grammar level students built a castle out of cardboard tubes and boxes.  What a great idea!  Next week they will paint them.  I can see little action figures playing all around the castles once they are done.  That will be fun! 

For literature, they read and discussed The Making of a Knight by Patrick O'Brien (affiliate link).  It is a great book to describe one boy's growth from a page into a knight.

It is a good book but Rachel got a little distracted playing with Rosie.

The dialectic students have been reading a version of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  I love having this co-op time with friends so the kids can have real literature discussions about what they are reading.

Then they had to work together to build their own castle....out of a cake!  I provided them with a square chocolate cake that already had icing on it.  Then I gave them some Oreos, Kit Kat bars, mini Hershey bars, blue and chocolate icing, sprinkles, etc.  i enjoyed watching their team work and the castle came together.

They made a moat with the blue icing and a drawbridge out of the Kit Kat bars.  They used the mini Hershey bars for bricks on the castle and battlements on the towers.

There may have been some snacking along the way.  They added a Keep and a ship in the moat.

All done!  They had fun and I love that it was an activity and snack all in one!

Here is one final picture before all the kids, big and little, attacked the castle and ate it!