Use these castle pictures as role-play inspiration, discussion starters, writing prompts, and much more! Why not try our Craigmillar Castle word search activity too? The class could explore what they already know about knights - this would be helped by showing some images or even props such as costumes.

Sally: It's a good question. Castles are all different and how they were built changed over time. At first they were built of wood, but that burnt too easily. So then they were made of stone. There were lots of changes over the years. Let's put our virtual reality headsets on and go and take a look at two castles to find out more.

Activity: Castles quiz

Harry: Oh, look! He's got hundreds of ships to take his army across. It must have been so exciting. Harry: Okay, let's put our virtual reality headsets on, so you can see what things were really like and find out more.

During the time when the motte and baileys were being built, powerful noblemen were constructing the Norman great towers. Sally: Well, he had a huge decision to make: whether to fight Harold in a battle or not. But gathering an army of soldiers and paying for armour and horses and ships was very expensive. And then there was the risk that he might lose and be killed. Sally: William was related to the King of England, who had just died. So William thought he should be the next King of England. But a man called Harold was actually crowned the next King. So there was trouble ahead. The portcullis was the spiked barrier which protected the doors from fire and battering. It was made from metal or woof and could be lowered by chains.To make this clearer, the teacher could use two overlapping hoops (positioned as a Venn diagram) to capture a bank of Each photo is labelled with a key vocabulary word from the topic such as 'dungeon' and 'moat' along with a small description of what that part of the castle was used for. This is great for spellings and getting children to understand the keywords from the topic. Castles have been built for around 900 years and originated in the 9th and 10th centuries. Earth and timber was originally used to build castles, but later, these materials were replaced by stone.

Fatima: So I've seen lots of castles in books and on the Internet, but it will be great to know a bit more about what makes a castle, a castle. Teach beside me formed a whole unit around St George and the Dragon providing me with lots of inspiration for introducing the story to J and T before St George’s Day on 23rd April with crafts and activities to explore the book and story. When the pupil presents their castle, this would also hit the spoken language objective of using spoken word to present. Castle's were largely made of wood until later in the middle ages when stone-masonry became the model of building. For a king or nobleman to be able to afford the costs of building his own castle was a sign of his wealth and power. Only the most powerful and wealthiest men could afoord to build castles, many of which took years and years to complete. Fatima: Yeah, I'm going to go and design a castle with tall walls, a moat, a drawbridge, gates, a tower and a big hall for everyone to eat in. Maybe I can make a model of it.During the Middle Ages, there were three main types of solders, foot soldiers, archers and knights. Knights were heavily armoured and rode on horses. At a medieval banquet, the top table was where the king and his important guests sat. The king's favourite people sat to his right. This would be a great opportunity for the children to develop their spoken language skills by taking part in a discussion around which is the most important feature of a castle and why.