How To Make a Castle – Build A Cardboard Medieval Castle

How to Make a Castle – DIY Cardboard Medieval Castle Craft

One of my most favorite activities and indeed craft times with my kids was castle making! We made an awesome cardboard castle.

Medieval times, or the middle ages, were between 5th to 15th century. A long time ago. These times in history were very different than now: people lived in castles, rode horses, and had kings. 

There were jesters in the castle, maids, and knights defending princesses. Today we’ll create our very own cardboard medieval castle, and get ready to re-enact some battles.

Why you should learn How to make a Cardboard Castle DIY

A cardboard castle is a fun and creative project that allows you to create your own castle out of cardboard.

This type of project is perfect for kids and adults alike, no matter their age as it allows you to use your imagination and creativity to build a unique and personalized castle.

If you want to make yours bright orange, go right ahead, the more unique the better! 

A cardboard castle can be used as a fun playhouse for kids and will provide hours of fun for children of all ages.

The materials required for this project are easy to obtain and affordable, making it a budget-friendly option for anyone looking to add some creativity and fun to their lives.

Learning how to make a castle out of cardboard will teach your child to recycle. Take the opportunity to talk about saving trees and re-using paper products to save the earth.

You can also make it into a history lesson by telling older kids a little about life during Medieval times and the fact that there were 3 different types of Medieval castles. 

OK, it’s time! Let’s create some medieval crafts for kids, like a strong fortress for your prince and princess.

Find out how to build a castle below! 

How to make a medieval castle out of cardboard

Building a cardboard castle is not a quick activity. It takes time to cut out the cardboard pieces, make windows and doors, draw the bricks and putting it all together, but you’ll have time to bond with your child.

While it takes some time to do this that you decide on how big to make it. 

Are you still interested in following my tutorial on ‘How to Make a Castle out of Cardboard’?

There are parts of the building process when you can step away: for example, you may be able to let your little one draw the castle walls alone.

In the end, you’ll have a nice castle for lots of quiet (or maybe not so quiet, if it’s time for battle) activities later.

This is done in traditional colors but of course then is nothing to stop you from painting it pink to make it more girl like. 

You can make this as large or small as you like depending on the amount of cardboard you like. My kids always ask me to make a big cardboard castle but they do not like the idea of spending hours putting it together. 

If you make mini castles you might want to make several and decorate them differently and have a little medieval village, and then make larger one to use as a fortress.

This is all time dependent of course.  Perhaps this might be a project for the Summer months. 

Find out how to build a castle from cardboard below.

Cardboard Medieval Castle Project for School

Yield: 1 castle

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Active Time: 2 hours

Total Time: 2 hours 10 minutes

Difficulty: easy

Estimated Cost: free

Build a cardboard medieval castle and teach your child about these historical times.

Print

Materials

• Three empty paper towel rolls
• Four pieces of cardboard
• Construction paper
• Black marker
• Glue
• Scissors

Instructions

Step #1:

Cut two of your empty paper towel rolls in half. These will be the four corners of your castle. Leave the third paper towel roll as is.

Step #2:

Take out your black marker. Draw stones on the four pillars. You can do this easily by drawing lines all around the tube, then just create bricks all around those lines.

Step #3:

On one end of each of the four pillars, cut out rectangles. 

Step #4:

Draw windows on each of the four pillars.

Step #5:

Get your cardboard pieces. Make sure that two of them are cut into squares and the other two into rectangles. You want these pieces to be a bit smaller than your pillars when you line them up against each other.

Step #6

Use your black marker again and draw smaller bricks on the walls. To make sure the bricks line up on each side you can match them by placing them side by side.

Step #7

Cut out windows in three of the cardboard walls. Create a door in the fourth one.

Step #8

Glue your four walls, to your four pillars as illustrated here. 

Step #9:

With the third paper towel roll you had set aside, create a tower for your castle. Draw bricks on this one as well. Create a cone shape out of your construction paper and glue it on the top.

Notes

You can paint your castle any color you like!!

Now, once you finished building your castle, gather up all our knights and horses to defend your castle from dragons and bad guys!

Make some fun little figures using medieval crafts for kids to go in your castle!!

Popsicle stick princesses work really well and can help girls turn this into a fairy tale craft. In fact I have tons of paper Princess crafts on my site to help you. All you need to do is add a popsicle stick on the end and you can use these as tiny figures or puppets for your castle. 

Why not make a Coronation crown craft also to complete the King and Queen theme!

With our medieval castle you’ll have a toy to play with for a long time after. With the castle and characters you can play pretend and act out all kinds of stuff.

This is a great time to teach the children a little bit about the middle ages, while they create these great crafts.

This is ideal for homeschooling and makes for an excellent history lesson; one which your kids will not forget!

I know some kids get set this task as homework, so this tutorial on how to make a castle for school project. 

Can you think of anything else you would like to make to help you play with your castle? How about some paper or plastic swords? You could maybe do with some horses or even military vehicles. 

In olden times castles often have cannons so maybe you might try and make one of these too.

Let your kid’s imagination run wild and see where their creativity takes them (Moms and Dads beware as your kids could end up giving you a list of more crafts to construct)!

On a positive note making your own toys from cardboard is much cheaper than buying them at the top shop, plus in my experience kids appreciate them more. 

What do you like best about this castle built with cardboard boxes?

More Medieval Crafts For Kids

Create more crafts out of that old cardboard. I am sure you have lots to recycle so why not put it to good use. However I know my how to make a castle is one of the most popular!

Sheriff’s Badge – Play pretend and be the sheriff of your town with this cardboard badge.

Trusty Sidekick – Every sheriff needs a horse, use some more cardboard and make a horse to ride.

Liska over at adventure in a box has a castle project too. You might want to check it out.

Do you like this Cardboard Medieval Castle Project?

Pin To Save For Later