Knights-in-the-Making

The boys and I just loved our adventure studying the middle ages. (You can read about our previous adventures here, here, here, and here.)

But I think one of the highlights was the focus on knights. My boys were inspired.  They wanted to dress like them, fight like them, behave like them.  Really, they wanted to become knights.

Now I knew this had potential.  We could use more modern day knights these days...  So we took a couple of extra weeks and dove in to pursue the transformation.

First step: getting outfited as knights! Cowboy boots doubled for riding boots, our bow and arrow sets from our study of Native Americans last year came in handy and we added some fun homemade armor to the mix!

We cut out cardboard shields, spraypainted them silver and then painted them with their favorite design. Our tempora paints didn't work, so we had to use {stain prone} acrylics - hence the boys being shirtless.   What did we do before the internet????  I found a great video tutorial on making shields that I watched before we embarked on making our own.

They all wanted to be George, the red-cross knight and to reduce bickering, I allowed them the cross, but had them paint their shield in their signature color.

Our curriculum had a great idea for making helmets.  Unfortunately, I didn't really think it through and it ended up being far more mommy intensive than I like.  (I don't consider it the kids project unless they can do most of it themselves.)  It would have been great if my boys had been just a few years older.  If I had to do it over again, I would have just covered their bike helmets with aluminum foil! :)

Inspite of that, Keegan enjoyed the paper-mache part...

All the boys liked playing with tape.  And of course they all LOVED the finished product (minus the visor because I just didn't feel like adding that part).

Now that they are outfitted, I'll fill you in on their 'training' next time!

Part 2: Knights-In-Training