Brushes and shields: an easy craft project for young knights

Back in December, I discovered Tomie DePaola’s picture books.

We started with his Old Befana, loved Little Grunt, and then found The Knight and the Dragon.

We were reading The Knight and The Dragon while we were doing another finger painting project. This was the same day, co-incidentally, that I had cut a couple of paper bags up for jackets.*

The knight in the story had to create his own armor. The jackets did look rather like breastplates. So, I started to wonder whether we could also create shields from the paper bags.

We could, and we did!

This is, as usual, a relatively simple project.

Paper-bag shields:

1. Take a paper-bag. Any grocery store bag with handles will work, though one with less printing works better.
2. Help your kids detach the handles from the top of the bag.
3. Fold the bag down flat and fold the end over. Tape or staple it down to create a small, sturdy rectangle.
4. Then, attach the handles side-by-side to the back of your rectangle. We used tape, but staples or glue can work as well. The handles just need to be secure.
5. Turn the rectangle over and paint the front. 
6. If you want, you can help your kids draw the design onto the bag before painting. Or, they can improvise as they go. We created an airplane for our design.

That’s it!

I helped with taping and paint suggestions, but my preschooler did most of the work on his own. (And he enjoys toting the shield around too.)

*The paper-bag jackets idea came from a kid activity at our local nature center.