Bowman students construct castles to coincide with reading of ‘Crispin’
Kaydon Ray shows off his castle that he made of toothpicks with the help of his grandpa. The students constructed castles as they read ‘Crispin’. Each castle was unique. Cory Spiers/Staff
A vestibule inside Bowman Middle School was recently full of dozens of handmade castles.
Bowman eight-graders in Cindy Ollis’ English class built castles inspired by their reading of the book “Crispin,” a children’s novel set in the 1300s. Under Ollis’ guidance, the students used various household materials and art supplies to create castles in multiple shapes, styles, colors and themes that were on display inside the school.
Ollis took several of the castles to the Toe River Arts Council to be part of its Arts in Education Showcase.
Some designs depicted “classic” castles with materials like paper mache and cardboard while others got creative and used less traditional materials.
Kaydon Ray constructed his with toothpicks. It took hundreds. He made the castle with his grandpa over more than a week and said he’ll give the castle to him after it’s displayed.
“Patience,” Ray said to sum up the construction process. “It took a while. It was fun. It took more than I thought it would.”
Ray and his classmates Clara Hutchings, Madison Sparks and Ruby Rambo-Mohr showed off their castles on Friday, Feb. 4 and talked about what they learned.
Since there were no strict guidelines on how the castle had to look, every creation was unique.
Hutchings said that was part of the fun.
“Since there weren’t really guidelines, you can look around and kind of tell whose it is without a nametag,” she said. “Everybody’s is pretty much different. They put their personality in it.”