Jester's hat
Print instructions & templates
Get a little bit silly with this "cap 'n' bells" jester's hat.
You will need:
4 coloured cardboard sheets
scissors
glue
stapler
sticky tape
6 small bells
Make a robe to go with your Jester's hat
Belted robe
Make this simple robe to go with your knight’s helmet, crown or jester’s hat. A great addition to a dress-up box.
Zoe thought it might be easy to be a jester, but you needed plenty of skills and lots of energy … and although jesters were also called fools, they needed to be quick thinkers to entertain the royal court all day long.
What do you think? Do you have what it takes to be a jester?
Can you make up a rhyme right now, on the spot?
Can you sing and dance and giggle a lot?
You’ll have to tell jokes, lots of jibes and jests…
At the same time as juggling balls would be best.
Can you spin around fast and fall to the ground,
Then bounce up and down, making animal sounds?
Now cartwheel and leap to incredible heights,
And make us all laugh from morning ’til night.
That’s quite a challange and definitely a lot of hard work! Maybe being a jester wasn't such an easy job after all.
The uniform is important too. Hundreds of years ago, a jester wore a pair of donkey’s ears and a tail, but luckily for Zoe (and you) that changed to a suit of brightly-coloured cloth, in patchwork bits and pieces, and most importantly a ‘cap and bells’ hat.
From the Powerhouse Museum's collection:
Clowns are our modern-day jesters. This sideshow banner featuring a clown was used at the Royal Easter Show during the 1950s.
Take a closer look.
Step by step:
1. Measure out a 9cm by 60cm band onto a piece of coloured card and cut it out with scissors.
2. Using the template, cut out six triangles in different colours. Staple these side by side to the inside of the band. Leave a 3cm space at each end of the band.
3. Using the decoration templates and coloured card, make six decorations. Glue them onto the outside of the band underneath each triangle.
4. To attach the bells, slide the point of each triangle through the loop of a bell.
5. Fold over the point and secure it with sticky-tape. You may have different bells that need securing another way.
6. Fit the band to your head and secure it firmly using sticky-tape.
