The Amazing Castle™
School and Community Services
This is a sample of the Educator’s Guide developed at Minnesota Children's Museum
for The Amazing Castle exhibit. This guide provides teachers with suggestions for
activities to do before they visit the exhibit, activities to do after the visit and a sample
letter for teachers to send home.
*This information is also available electronically at exhibits.mcm.org (password
will be provided prior to your venue).
The Amazing Castle School Services
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CASTLE CAPERS (K – 4)
Educator’s Guide
Why study castles?
 Learn about the different roles that people have in a castle community to meet the
community’s needs and wants.
 See how life has changed over time.
 Experience, through castle life, the ways in which people help each other solve
problems and get things done in their community.
Graduation Standards
Completing the activities from our Castle Capers Educator’s Guide and interacting in
The Amazing Castle exhibit will provide scaffolding to support implementing the
Minnesota State Graduation Standards listed below.
Social Studies: Family, School and Community
The student will participate in activities that will reinforce knowledge of the interaction of
location, family, school and community including an understanding of:
A. how wants and needs are responsibly met in the home, school, and
community;
B. the reasons for location of communities and features of communities;
C. the location of major places and geographic features of the earth’s
surface by creating mental maps of the local community and country in
relation to larger geographic units;
D. how different people may respond differently to the same event;
E. how the student’s home region has changed over time; and
F. how to improve the school, community, or environment.
Students will also participate in activities in the following areas:
 Listening
 Speaking
 Reading
 Writing
 The Arts
 Inquiry
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BEFORE YOUR VISIT
Before your visit to The Amazing Castle, try some of the activities below to prepare your
students. Adapt up or down depending on your students’ abilities.
1. Have a discussion about castles, which are old or fanciful types of communities.
Have the students get to know their own community. Take a walking tour. Display
maps of your community. Invite a community historian to talk to your class about
how your community has changed. Have students build a model of your school’s
community using blocks or small boxes.
2. Learn about different jobs and workers in your community by inviting a
community guest speaker to your classroom. Ask the students if they think there
was a job in the castle community that met the same need as the speaker’s job.
3. Generate a list of activities, describing how they are performed today and how
students think they were performed in a castle. For example, in the present, metal
objects are made in a factory, while in castle times, the blacksmith made the metal
objects in the shop. When you visit The Amazing Castle, look for evidence of those
activities.
4. Research and locate castles from around the world and mark them on a map. Make
observations about the various building styles and techniques
5. Listen to music that was heard during the medieval castle era. Include music such
as: French Chanson, Italian Madrigal, German Lied and/or sacred music. Talk about
troubadours, the traveling musicians who would sing ballads and play guitars or
lutes for royal guests. Ask students if they want to volunteer to put on a troubadour
performance.
6. Create a personalized coat of arms. Use a variety of symbols to represent you or
your family and add your family name.
7. Read about fairytales that take place in castles—Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty,
Rumpelstiltskin and Snow White. Compare the similarities and differences between
the castles. Look for jobs that people do in the castle communities in these tales.
8. Listen to and learn to recite the poem about The Amazing Castle.
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An Amazing Castle Story
This is the castle – The Amazing Castle™ –
Built by the Lord and the Lady.
This is the jester who jokes and juggles.
He planned a party
To honor the castle
Built by the Lord and the Lady.
This is the gardener who waters and weeds.
She grew some food to serve at the party.
She helped the jester
Who planned a party
To honor the castle
Built by the Lord and the Lady.
This is the cook who mixes and measures.
He made a meal with the gardener’s harvest.
He helped the gardener
Who helped the jester
Who planned a party
To honor the castle
Built by the Lord and the Lady.
This is the blacksmith who heats and hammers.
She fixed a crack in the cook’s big pot.
She helped the cook
Who helped the gardener
Who helped the jester
Who planned a party
To honor the castle
Built by the Lord and the Lady.
This is the tailor who snips and sews.
He made an apron to cover the blacksmith.
He helped the blacksmith
Who helped the cook
Who helped the gardener
Who helped the jester
Who planned a party
To honor the castle
Built by the Lord and the Lady.
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This is the carpenter who saws and sands.
He built the bench where the tailor works.
He helped the tailor
Who helped the blacksmith
Who helped the cook
Who helped the gardener
Who helped the jester
Who planned a party
To honor the castle
Built by the Lord and the Lady.
This is the dragon all dreamy and drowsy
Who wakes to start the party:
“Come castle folk, come dance and play!
Come honor the castle—The Amazing Castle—
Built by the Lord and the Lady!”
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AFTER YOUR VISIT
The following activities will reinforce and review what students experienced at The
Amazing Castle exhibit.
1. Write a story about life in The Amazing Castle. Create puppets for each
character and put on a castle puppet play.
2. Create shoebox dioramas of the different rooms found in a castle: Tailor Shop,
Carpenter Shop, Blacksmith Shop, Great Hall, Keep and Dragon Tower. Collect
shoeboxes, colored construction paper, magazines, paint, markers, fabric, glue,
etc. Have small groups work on a room together. Assemble the dioramas to
create the castle environment. Draw a map of your castle community.
3. Create a castle using blocks, paper and/or sand. If you use sand, you’ll need:
 2 cups of sand
 1 cup of cornstarch
 1 cup of water
 newspaper
Mix sand, cornstarch and water in an old pot. Cook the mixture over low heat.
Stir constantly. When the mixture thickens, remove from the stove and let it cool.
Turn it out onto newspaper. Mold it into a sand castle.
4. In the Middle Ages, books were rare and amazing. They were handmade and
bound in leather. Before there were calendars, a wealthy person might have a
“Book of Days” to write in daily to mark the passage of time. Create “A Book of
Days.” Collect construction paper, white paper and ribbon or yarn. Fold four
pieces of white paper to create the inside pages. Fold one piece of construction
paper and use it for the cover. Put the paper together and punch two holes with
the paper punch. Bind the book with ribbon or yarn. Have students keep this
journal for a week by writing a poem, daily events or a story. They can use a
feather to simulate quill writing, or create ornate, calligraphy letters to begin each
page.
5. Grow a medieval herb garden. Try growing parsley, thyme, sage, and rosemary.
You’ll need four flowerpots, potting soil, seeds and a sunny windowsill. Learn
how these herbs were thought to be powerful protectors of good health. Parsley
is rich in vitamins. Thyme was used as a spice and a cough drop. It was also
thought to give people courage. When eaten, sage was thought to make a
person live forever. Rosemary was known as a love potion and would repel bad
dreams and witches.
6. Read The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch. Then create a paper bag
princess outfit.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Non-Fiction Books
What Were Castles For? Phil Roxbee Cox, 1995
Look Inside a Castle. Laura Driscoll, 1994
Castle. Christopher Gravett, 1994
How Castles were Built. Peter Hicks, 1999
Castles. Gallimard Jeunesse, Claude Delafosse and C. & D. Millet, 1990
A Medieval Castle. Fiona MacDonald and Mark Bergin, 1990
Castle Life. Struan Reid, 1999
Castles. Philip Steele, 1995
Fiction Books
A Medieval Feast. Aliki, 1983
The Apple King. Bosca, 2001
The Knight and the Dragon. Tomie dePaola, 1980
Paper Bag Princess. Robert Munsch,1980
The Jester Has Lost His Jingle. David Saltzman, 1995
William the Curious Knight of the Water Lilies. Charles Santore, 1997.
The Hungry Thing. Jan Slepian and Ann Seidler, 1967
Good Night, Good Knight. Shelly Moore Thomas, 2000
King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub. Audrey Wood, 1990
Rumpelstiltskin. Zelinsky, 1986
Art Activity Books
Knights and Castles. Avery Hart and Paul Mantell, 1998
Knights and Damsels. Laurie Carlson, 1998
Websites
www.castles.org
simple history and illustrations
www.castlesontheweb.com
castles for children section with great links
castle books section
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FAMILY LETTER AND ACTIVITY – THE AMAZING CASTLE™
Dear Family,
Today we took a trip to ________________________ to reinforce what we are studying
in school. While we were at the Museum, we explored The Amazing Castle exhibit and
focused our learning on castles and how people live and work together in a castle
community.
Castles are located all around the world and they each have a unique community. Each
community helper in the castle has a different job or role to perform. It is important for
each community helper to work towards meeting the needs and wants of the castle
community.
In The Amazing Castle exhibit, many different parts of the community are represented.
The exhibit has a Carpenter Shop where you can make repairs and build new furniture
for the castle. You can become different community helpers in the Great Hall, the
Garden and the Blacksmith and Tailor Shops.
Your child’s visit to the Museum made him/her aware of communities and how they
work. Help your child notice the different jobs and roles in your household and
neighborhood communities and compare them to the castle community. Your child
should fill out the back of this sheet using drawings or sentences and return it to school
by
.
Sincerely,
The Amazing Castle School Services
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Name
With which of these jobs do you help your family?
Job
Then
Made the metal tools
Blacksmith
Cook
Tailor
Gardener
Carpenter
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Now
Buy tools at the hardware
store
The Amazing Castle™
School and Community Services
This is a sample of the gallery guide developed by Minnesota Children's Museum for educators
bringing groups to visit The Amazing Castle exhibit.
*This information is also available electronically at exhibits.mcm.org (password
will be provided prior to your venue).
The Amazing Castle School Services
Page 10 of 11
The Amazing Castle™
Gallery Guide
Welcome to The Amazing Castle!
We are getting ready for a celebration. Each of us in the castle community is needed to
make the celebration a success. You are needed, too.
Castle helpers work for the community.
 Where does each helper work?

What does each helper make for the community? How are these goods made
now?

Match the village helpers to the tools they need to help meet the needs and
wants of the castle community.
Each helper has a challenge that needs to be met.
 Look for each challenge and find the villager who can help meet it. For example,
who can help the cook with his leaky pot?
Prepare for the celebration.
 Construct new block buildings.

Harvest the crops from the garden and cook the food.

Dress up in your best clothes for the party.
Once all the challenges have been met:
 Wake Herald the Dragon to announce the party.

Set out the feast for the big celebration.

Greet Lord Ben and Lady Evolent.

Put on a puppet show or dress as the Jester
to entertain the party guests.
Copy this guide and send it to your chaperones, preferably prior to the Museum visit.
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