Kings, Queens, Castles & Thingsm

Looking beyond the fluffy (but very fun) Disney Princess explosion in our world, there are many great learning opportunities associated with Kings and Queens.  We talked quite a bit about brave and kind Knights and Kings and Queens who use their manners.    The children were a bit surprised when I showed them pictures of real life Kings and Queens (Thank you England for keeping your royalty). Such a fun week and a reminder to me that their is royalty within each of these little ones.

 The classic lacing shapes are a classic for a reason.  Working on fine motor skills is preparing them for all that writing that is in their future.

 Before you can become a Knight you must practice saving a damsel in distress.  First you have to ride your horse and use your lance to fight off the bad guys (it was a balloon that Kyler had just popped).

 After crossing the moat and storming the castle you come face to face with the dragon-tossing bean bags at him is the best way to get rid of him.  Then you get to save the princess!  All the Knights did fabulous and saved the princess each time.

 The kids had so much fun with these crackers with letters stamped on each one.  Cheeze-its aren't something I buy normally, but when they encourage early literacy I'm all for it.

 We talked about how shields were important to identify the Knights.  The children thought about what they could put on their family coat of arms.  In the end it was so much fun to just cover them up with paint.

 Our Jousting Tournament

 On Guard...Our Knights and Princess Knights in shining armor.

 The children could absolutely loved this straw builder set.  Seriously, they didn't want to do anything else.  So we built in the morning...

 and kept building...

And built some more.  Even then, it was with great reluctance that they cleaned them up (I promised them we would play with them this Summer)

Avah is such a pretty Princess!