Shoe Box Castles

Last week in art camp the 4-yr olds made these beautiful castles. They were totally into it! We made them over a period of three days, with drying time. When they finally took them home, they were completely sturdy and ready for imaginary play!

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Here’s what you’ll need:

Two shoeboxes of different sizes (or small shipping boxes)

Scissors and exacto knife (optional, but helps cut windows)

Elmer’s glue

TP rolls, corks, popsicle sticks, other recycled materials

Tempera paints + brushes

String + colored tapes (you can get these from Amazon or Etsy)

Step 1: Take the lids off the boxes and turn them upside down. Cut doors and windows. Glue the smaller box on top of the bigger box. Let dry overnight.

Step 2: Give them each 4 toilet paper rolls to glue on top. Put out recycled materials in baskets or bowls. I put out corks, popsicle sticks and cut little “bricks” from cardboard. You could also use bottle caps, wooden spools, or anything that is small that they can glue. Let the castles dry overnight before painting.

Step 3: (optional) When the glue is dry, or mostly dry, put a coat of white or light gray paint over the boxes. I did this because some of the shoeboxes were orange or black. But if you have cardboard boxes then you can skip this step.

Step 4: Put out some paints! My campers love, I mean LOVE, pink and purple. So we went with some pastel-ish colors. I like mixing the colors with a little white to make them more opaque. After they’ve finished covering their castles with delicious colors, let them dry overnight.

Step 5: Make the flags. I forgot to photograph this part. But basically, just take a piece of string and fold over little pieces of tape. I stuck the ends in the tubes and used masking tape to tape them down.

Aren’t they fabulous? I am so proud of all of their hard work.

Have a great week!

xo, Bar