Knight Week

(David calls this look the “piright”)

This post is long overdo.  Many, many weeks ago we had a knight day week weeks.  Now that Jude is into everything and not a little baby, content to sit and observe from the sidelines, the single day theme days are a thing of a past.  We are lucky if we can get a few activities knocked out in one day.  But, Elliott still jumps for joy when I tell him that we’re going to do one of our special days.

Months ago I began gathering material for a knight day per Elliott’s request.  And, after my mom gifted him with this knight costume and castle for his birthday, I was finally inspired to put everything together.

We started out with a trip to the library to pick up some books about knights.  Some of our favorites were:

I used some of the wonderful (and FREE) preschool printables from Homeschool Creations and made them into a workbook for Elliott to work on throughout the week.  At the end of the book I included a cute color by number dragon that I found here.

We also talked a lot about what it means to put on the full armor of God.  Elliott loved this activity that I found here so much that he asked me to print out the uncolored version so that he could do it again and choose his own colors.

We talked about castles and fortresses, and he built his own.  He also memorized this verse.

For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me. Psalm 31:3

Elliott watched these Backyardigans episodes over and over again.

I saw this idea for creating your own stained glass window in my monthly edition of Family Fun magazine and thought it would be fun to include in our knight week.  Elliott absolutely loved doing this.  It was great because once I taped the plastic wrap to the window I handed him a glue stick and the cut up tissue paper and he went to work.  It kept him occupied for a long time.  The next day he asked if he could do another one.

I came across this How to Train Your Dragon preschool pack here a long time ago and decided to include parts of it in our knight week as well.

Uppercase/lowercase letter matching

Patterns

Castle puzzle from Homeschool Creations

I found the coolest craft tutorial for how to make your own knight shield here, but sadly it did not go over so well at our house.  I decided to have Elliott use markers to decorate his shield and he was less than pleased with the outcome.  He pouted and threw a fit.  I gave him some paint to cover over it and he still was not happy with it.  So, into the trash went the shield, and into time out went my fit-throwing shieldless knight.  If you’re looking for a cute craft idea, try it out for yourself.  But, I would suggest starting with paint!  It’s a large surface area to cover with markers

Despite the shield-making fiasco we did manage to talk about the importance of a knight’s shield and relate it to God being our shield.  We memorized this verse.

Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Proverbs 30:5

And, of course our knight week would not have been complete without lots and lots of time spent playing with the new castle!