Knight Party Game: Fly the Falcons!

Knights and falcons go together like... HISTORY!  For our Winter Knight's Tale party, we discussed how falcons get restless over winter, so it is critical that knights take them out of the castle to stretch their wings and catch some fresh grub!

In this game, knights work with a partner. The falcon is made of cardstock paper on a recycled cardboard tube. A string is stretched through the paper tube falcon from one knight to his/her partner.

To fly the falcon, the child nearest the bird must raise their end of the string up while the other child lowers their end to the floor, keeping the string taut, so that gravity glides the bird down the string. When the bird reaches the floor, the child nearest the falcon picks it up while raising his/her string high. When the child's partner has her/his end on the floor, the bird is ready to glide down the string again. (In this game, birds can fly backwards!)

It can be helpful to make a line on the floor (or use an object, like the "lance" foam insulation tube above) to keep the knights separated by a good distance. This helps them keep the string taut.

Once the kids get the hang of flying the falcon, it's time to go insect hunting. On the bottom of the falcon's outstretched feet is a hot-glued magnet. On the floor between the fliers are small popsicle sticks with stretchy/rubber insects rubberbanded to one side and magnets hot-glued to the other.

Challenge the knights to aim the falcon's descent to pick up the bug (magnet to magnet). All players get to keep a falcon and an insect for a prize!

Patterns/directions for making the falcon are on a separate post.

Note:  Of course, real knights would use hawks and larger falcons to go MAMMAL hunting. In this party game, we opted for a smaller, insect eating species because my boys didn't want to hunt rabbits or other furry "game" for their party.