Knights & Castles — Building a Medieval Fortress in English

This week at Art for Kids, our studio turned into a medieval building site! 🏰 The children rolled up their sleeves, became master builders for the afternoon, and constructed their very own knights' castles — complete with towers, walls and tall watchtowers.

From a pile of sticks to a mighty fortress

Starting with nothing but a box of natural materials, the children planned and built their castles piece by piece. They worked with wooden craft sticks, lollipop sticks, natural twigs and branches, matchsticks and wooden dowels, lashing everything together with colourful twine, string and jute cord — just like real medieval builders.

Then came the details: walls and rooftops cut from coloured paper and cardboard, little figures and trees shaped from air-dry clay, and a final flourish of paint to bring each fortress to life. A trusty glue stick held it all together.

So much more than a craft

Building a castle is a brilliant whole-child project:

• 🧠 Planning & problem-solving — how do you make a tower stand tall without toppling over?
• ✋ Fine motor skills — tying, cutting, gluing and balancing tiny pieces.
• 🤝 Patience & teamwork — great things take time, and a little help from a friend.
• 🌍 English all the way through — the whole session runs in English using the CLIL method, so children pick up new words (tower, wall, knight, drawbridge) naturally while they create.

Learning a subject through English

That's the heart of what we do. Instead of studying English as a subject, children use it — listening, naming, asking and describing as they build. By the end of the class they've made a castle they're proud of and soaked up a whole world of new language without even noticing.

Come and build with us

Our art-in-English classes run for children aged 5–12, in small groups, every Saturday at Odolańska 60 (Sztukarnia) — and we also bring our workshops to schools and birthday parties across Warsaw.

See our classes and get in touch →