Year 1
Building Castles
Throughout the year, we have been developing our
critical thinking skills. We have been learning to prob-
lem solve, think creatively, reflect and evaluate, take
risks and be resilient when things do not work out
quite as we expect. In order to put these skills into ac-
tion, we were set a challenge. Our brief was to trans-
form a simple box into a castle. Creativity was rife as
we designed, developed and amended our ideas - the
finished products were impressive! Constructing our
castles involved lots of problem solving and resilience.
Nevertheless, crenulations, turrets and moats gradually
took shape and in the final analysis, we were all justifi-
ably proud of our efforts and of our castles.
“I made a fighting castle with knights inside. I
made a drawbridge they could pull up so the ene-
my couldn’t get in. I had fun making the castle. I
stuck paper on the sides and scrunched up paper
to make the people.” Lily
“First I measured around the sides of the castle
and drew them onto paper. Then I coloured it all
in. I cut it out and stuck it on my box. Next I made
the turrets and the top of the castle. It had ceiling
to floor windows and roses growing over it. I
drew a little Rapunzel with her hair all the way
down to the ground.” Flora
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