Card Castle

What You Do:

1. Tell your child to separate out all the kings, queens, and jacks from the rest of the deck. Only the royal cards are needed for this activity. Ideally you will have more than one deck of cards so that there will be more than 12 cards for castle building. (This may present some multiplication practice for your child: If there are 3 royalty cards in each suit, how many decks of cards will your child want to use?)
2. Let your medieval architect cut slits on the sides of each card, about ¾ of the way up the side of each card. The slits should each be about ½ inch long.
3. Next, your child should fit together the cards by matching up the slits and sliding the cards together. He can build horizontally and vertically, though balancing too high vertically can become difficult.
4. Some cards can just be layered or balanced on top (without using side slits) in horizontal or vertical positions for decorative touches.
5. If he has a final castle result that he would like to keep for a while, apply liquid glue to the areas where the cards meet each other.
6. Now the only thing left to do is play! Bust out the action figures, toy animals, and whatever other creatures your imaginative child desires to live in his new kingdom. May his reign be long and prosperous!