5 Minute Games For Toddlers - Cardboard Castle

Wednesday 20 December 2017

5 Minute Games For Toddlers - Cardboard Castle

If you have a toddler that is obsessed with knights or princesses then you need a castle. You can rush out and buy a lovely wooden one or a flashy plastic delight or you could make one out of a cardboard box.

It doesn't have to be perfect, no measuring or drawing lines just a pair of scissors and a marker pen.

You will need

2 brown cardboard boxes
A pair of scissors
A marker pen

1. Firstly choose a box that isn't too big. This may last hours or weeks and a huge box will just take up space, the second box is only needed to make a base and optional towers. If you do not have any boxes then supermarkets are often happy for you to take theirs for free.

2. To make the crenellations fold over the flaps inside the box and make an odd number of slits about an inch long and an inch apart.

3. Unfold the flaps and push alternative wedges inside the fold making sure that the corners are the up part ( it gives strength to the walls).

alternate-crenellations-pushed-inside-fold

4. Using the box as a template cut a base from the second box. Push into the castle. Draw a door on the box and away you go, castle made.

Optional towers

The castle shouldn't take more than 5 or ten minutes to make but if you want towers they will take a few minutes each. You will need four.

1. Cut 4 rectangles of cardboard from the second box. One side must be longer than the height of your castle by a few inches the other needs to be 4 times the width of your desired tower.

rectangle-of-cardboard-with-four-squares-cut-out-to-make-crenellations

2. Fold the rectangle to make a square open ended box. Stick with parcel tape.

3. On each side cut out a square from the top of the tower.

4. To make a platform to stop the knights falling down the tower, cut 4 strips of cardboard the width of the inside of the tower and fold into three, with two long sides and one the same width as the inside of the tower. Push one up into each tower.