Pirate Castle

This was definitely more of a mummy and daddy made activity activity as although easy to make is a bit fiddly. Older kids would enjoy painting and decorating it though.

You will need:

4 equal sized rectangles of cardboard (mine were about 5 x 7 inches)
4 cardboard tubes
Black paint
Tape (I used black duct tape)
Scissors
Straws

First of all take one of the rectangles of cardboard and place one cardboard tube to the side of it.

Cut a slit roughly half way up the tube

Cut a slit halfway down the rectangle

They should slot together. Repeat this for each ‘wall’ of the castle – so each tube and each rectangle will have two slits in, so they all fit together. Don’t forget to cut out an archway in one of the pieces as a doorway.

Cut little squares out of the top of the cardboard tubes to create turrets.

Paint it all black (might be easier to take it all apart to do this). I used for the inside of the castle. I did this because I had used toy packaging for the cardboard and the one side was shiny and printed on, which is a nightmare to paint! It also gave it a little bit more strength.

I then wrapped black duct tape (can you tell I love the stuff?!) around drinking straws, although you could just paint art straws black, and created a flag out of the tape (yes I’m obsessed!!) but black paper would work just as well. I did intend to finish it off by adding some skull and crossbones stickers but, as with a lot of things when two toddlers are about, they disappeared!

Harrison immediately wanted to play with it, so in our big play tub I tipped out our tub of lentils, some sparkly gems as treasure, and added in a cardboard ‘x’. Our pirate small world/sensory tub was finished with some Happyland pirates and our sponge sail boats. We dug for treasure by scooping up the lentils with spoons and poured lentils down the turrets of the castle.

Lots of fun!

Pirate Treasure Map by Toucan Box: a review

A couple of weeks ago we reviewed an excellent craft kit from ToucanBox. Today we used the other box that we were sent, and yet again I was very impressed!!

We have started our pirate theme week today but were also visiting my nan. The Toucan Box set was perfect to chuck in my bag to do there , as it is low mess and literally everything we needed was contained in the box!

We were sent a lovely pirate treasure map set. When I say it contained everything, I mean everything – even down to the glue stick, paint brush and teabag to stain the paper!

We made a pot of tea using the teabag provided (and had a cuppa with it – bonus!) and left into stew to go nice and dark as the very simple step by step instructions directed. We scrumpled up the paper and then used the paintbrush to ‘paint’ on the tea, and left it to dry. Whilst it was drying we made the parrot puppet- a cardboard cutout which we decorated with the mini felt pens included, and then glued on the feathers, googly eye and jumbo lolly stick. The only thing I would say is the glue stick didn’t hold the lollystick handle or eye on very well – I’ve used my glue gun to make it more secure. Perhaps some sort of sticky back or sticky pad would hold it better? Minor details though!

Once the paper had dried we decorated it with the pirate stickers and felt tip pens. What do you think?

The prices for Toucan Boxes vary depending on what level of subscription you go for, but single packs are available which give a months worth of craft ideas for just under £20, which would make a lovely gift idea.
The lovely people at Toucan have given me a code to share with you to claim a free taster box! Just visit their website <a href="http://www.toucanbox.com
“>here  and enter the code TOUCAN.
Enjoy!

* I was sent this and another Toucan Box for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

an adventure”>