Theme - Castle Theme

I used a "Royal Reader" idea in second grade, but it could work for other grade levels. We had a big wooden chair that I decorated as a throne, placed in front of a bulletin board with a large castle. Each child had the opportunity of being the "Royal Reader". They each selected a story or book to read to the class, and then pracitced it at home. On their "OWN" day they sat on the throne with a golded crown (made of shiny bulletin board edging) and read to the class, as well as invited guests of their choice; their parents, brothers, sisters or cousins in our school, the principal or librarian, one child invited his day-care provider who brought his little pre-school friends. It worked very well. I did check them out before the big day to help with their choice of selection and to see that they could do a good job. One of the greatest successes was a inclusion student. His mom helped him choose wisely and practiced with him. The other kids were very impressed and clapped for him when he finished. He was so proud! I'm betting he remembers it to this day, I certainly do!

I used the Middle Ages as my theme last year. Here are some ideas:

-Hear Ye! Hear Ye! for the information board
-Royal Duties for the job chart
-We made a castle for a book nook... used a wood frame and refrigerator boxes for the walls. We painted the background gray and added different colored "stones" using sponges cut to shape.
-The Medieval Times for the newsletter
-Called the students "lords and ladies"
-Knightly Reading Log for at home book reading list
-Crowning Behavior for incentive plan (kids put compliments in a jar and I picked one out each week. The kid being complimented got to wear a crown I had for the week.
-A Quest for Knowledge (I used this for a newsletter column where I answered parent and student questions
-Royal Proclamations for class announcements board
-Jester's Journal was another column in our newsletter

I had more but am going blank right now. Hope that helps.

Two teachers I work with used a castle theme. They decorated all their walls with pictures (they painted on the walls) of dragons and castles. Their outside walls looked like the stones of the castle... their book area was in the shape of the turret.
Their kids were excited about being in the "Castle".

This year our Kindergarten is using castles as a theme. For the opening bulletin board they made a big paper castle and put photos of the "princes" (12) and "princesses" (4) in the windows. There are also places for the "queens" (teacher and para) and the "king" (principal).

When I was in fifth grade we did a word unit called King Lexicon. I have done a search online and found only references that people are doing it. It was great fun, learning new words and how to use the dictionary.

I would love to do this theme. I can't wait till we get back to Europe (my school does a continent each year) so I can work this theme in.

Good luck.

Nancy,
This is a hard theme...I am doing it this year too. I am picking up a book today from the teacher store around here so if there is some good stuff in it I will let you know.

First of all, my door is a castle with a knight on either side -- guarding it. I had to make this myself because I couldn't find any great patterns.

On the open side of the door, I have Royal Readers written with Purple Fancy Script. With that, I am going to take all of my kids pictures and have them look like kings, queens, knights, jesters,...etc.

I just teach reading...so some might not apply to you. Then we have an incentive board that I wrote, "Red Hot Readers" which has a dragon shooting flames out of his mouth. This is where I am going to put their incentive sheets.

Another bulletin board says, "Books can take you Anywhere." I found some really cute Fantasy material at Wal-Mart that is my background.

Another bulletin board says, "Reading is Magical" and it has different fantasy background material.

I have a 5' dragon in my room that holds a book. I bought it from Trend. I also have a poster that has a 10' banner that has a dragon on it and it says, "Catch a dragon by the Tale." This I also got from Trend. I ordered book bags too for my students that have the same dragon and "catch a dragon by the Tale" written on them.

I ordered a new series of low-level chapter books too that are called, "Dragon Slayer Academy." Since I do low-level reading for grades 3-5 this is pretty appropriate.

Also, there is some great websites that have some wonderful ideas too. I can't remember the URL but type in castle theme and I think they come up.

I am trying to think of some more things I have in my classroom...I'm at home right now. If I think of any other ideas, I'll post more.

Also, if you have some ideas to share, I would love more!!!!

I made a mural of a castle and had kids make things found in fairy tales out of cut out paper, etc, such as dragons, witches, queens, knights, etc. to go on them. When we did writing workshop, each kid had a magic wand (a brand new pencil with a gold die-cut star taped to the top). They liked that. We had names, such as Prince Austin or Princess Lily and I was the Queen and we addressed each other like that during the unit. I even went to Burger King and got crowns and sometimes we would wear them when we were working on the unit. 3/4 probably wouldn't like to wear them outside of the classroom. I used a lot of purple and gold in my decorations. In social studies, we learned about castles and the medeival period. We read Knight at Dawn in the Magic Tree House series. I made a 3-D cake that looks like a castle for the culmination of our unit. I could try to give you directions if you need them. Use simple props and act out fairy tales. Do magic spells to figure out math problems. It's a lot of fun. Maybe I'll have to try it again this year. Good luck!

You could decorate your classroom from the pages of a couple fairy tales. Example: build a castle out of those large boxes that ovens and freezers come in. Use it as an entrance to your reading corner. Don't forget to include numerous fairy tale books for the kids to read. Even some of those "politically correct" fairy tales are quite amusing. On a bulletin board, Make a tower with "Rapunzel" at the top. Make a really long braid out of yellow yarn (her long golden hair hanging downn). Make a "prince" out of paper/whatever you like and each time the class does something very well, move the prince up a couple centimetres. When he gets to the top, the class earns a reward. Have the class make a huge fire-breathing dragon out of papier maché and hang him from the ceiling. Call your classroom meetings "knights of the round-table"

Just a couple ideas. Good-luck!

Melanie

hang pennants from the ceiling
let each child make a coat of arms
make your rules on a poster shaped/drawn like a scroll
use "Old English" or other medieval type fonts on everything
include dragons
begin a title with "Hear Ye, Hear Ye....."
have a king and queen of the week for "star student"
Call your room the "Kingdom of (your last name)"
If I think of more I'll post again.

I did this theme a few years back and the kids loved it. For behavior incentive they each had a cup where I placed clip art of a crown on the front of it. Every time I caught a student being good, they earned a gem for their crown. The bulletin board on top of it said, "We're Earning Our Gems!"

Another thing is that every time they earned so many gems, they got to move themselves up a ladder of royalty. Each child had a nameplate that started at the bottom of the royalty ladder. This is where they were "peasants". They moved up to squires, knights, dukes and duchesses, prince and princesses, kings and queens. When they go to be kings and queens they got to wear a crown for the day and they had no homework. They loved when they became knights because we had a knighting ceremony at the end of the week.

If you look at a teacher store, they have this corrugated board on a roll that looks like stone, I cut that out to look like a castle with a big door. On either side of the door I had old costumes from a halloween adventure of a duchess and king. I stuffed them and made them look like 3D.

I found princess hats and crowns and other great things at the dollar store.

I used a lot of purple, blue, green and gold to decorate around the room.

Good luck...It was one of my favorite themes to do.

Here's KQueen's castle... it's not nearly as "artsy" as the one made by the artist. Her's was tricky because it couldn't have supported itself for very long if we would have hung the two turret points from the drop ceiling and just the jaggedy middle parts from the skinny border area. So what we did, was actually staple on blue paper and the gray felt is what's tucked in. I need a sketch to explain it better. The basic idea is that it's an "illusion" -- really it's three pieces of rectangular gray felt with things stapled on top to look like the right shape. Does that make sense

I did this theme this fall. From Upstart, I ordered a bunch of dragon "stuff". I had a 5' cardboard dragon that held my Dragonology book that the kids just LOVED!
I just teach reading so my ideas just pertain to that. I had Red-Hot Readers which was written in "fire" that came out of a dragon's mouth. This is what I put their reading incentive charts on.
I also had a bulletin board that said, "Reading can take you to Magical Places!" I bought fabric at Wal-Mart that was medieval...had dragons, unicorns, wizards, castles, stuff like that.

I also had the Crawford Court, which had my kids' pictures in queen and king crowns.

On the outside of my door, I drew a castle on butcher paper, which looked AWESOME!!!

Another idea is to have the Throne, a chair, which the kids could share their stories with the class.

I had some more ideas, but can't think right now of what they are because I am at home.

If you need more ideas, let me know.

I'm doing an enchanted forest: Sort of like the Shrek movie. I work at a K-4th grade elementary library.
Going to have artificial trees and lots of artificial greenery,stuffed forest animals, as well as a stuffed Shrek and donkey.
Hanging shiny stars from the ceiling.
found a sight on the internet with directions on how to make a castle from cardboard boxes. Will be my reading corner.

I want to hang tulle more greenry,and small fairies and stars above my desk. (fairy godmother or mother goose)

Got pictures from the internet of fairytale characters, that can be drawn on large paper, and placed on the windows facing the hallways of the school.
Also have a banner of a large dragon. (Catch a dragon by the TALE)
or could say Red Hot Readers.

Other ideas:
damsel hats
knight shields
wands

Go to the archives above and type in "medieval," "castle," or "Middle Ages." You will definitely get some ideas.

A kindergarten teacher in my building used "The Kingdom of Kindergarten" on her door with a castle made of felt and then mounted on felt. The large felt almost covered the ouside of her door and was shaped like a tall banner with a V cut at the bottom and a rod at the top. The letters were cut from felt too and glued on the banner...fringe along the top, sides, and bottom...and crowns for each child's name. She bought silver and gold paper used for scrapbooking, traced the crowns on the back, laminated them, and then added gems and things that sparkled to them. She pinned the crowns to the banner. She went so far as to have the kids call her Queen (her last name) and she called them Prince/Princess (their first name). They loved it!

Her birthday board had crowns for the boys and tiaras for the girls. On their birthday or half-birthday (for summer birthdays), the kids wore a crown or tiara for the day.

She had a bulletin board called "The Serf Board" for her jobs. Early in the year, she dressed each child in a royal cape and crown and took their picture. She enlarged them and used these on the student of the week board..."Proud as a Peacock."

At Halloween, the whole class dressed as prince and princesses... that was very cute!

My school did this theme several years ago. I made a wizard with a magic wand with crepe paper at the end and stars for student names for the door. Another teacher made small coat of arms for each child, but I bet your kindergarteners would not understand this decoration. Other decorations in my classroom included knights, princesses, princes, frogs, a castle, a horse with all the colorful decorations, a peacock, and a dragon. My kids each made coat of arms for classroom decorations too and I made several banners from felt.

At Michaels, a craft store, I found scrapbooking stickers of the above items. I made a copy on the copy machine and then made an overhead so I could enlarge them. My kids loved the dragon. Of course, we read fairy tales every day for the first month of school. I teach third grade, so we ended up doing many compare/contrasts, Venn diagrams, story mappings, etc.

Coloring books...they are cheap...work great too for getting ideas and patterns for bulletin boards. A Medieval Feast by Aliki has great illustrations that would give you a "flavor" of colors and ideas.

Books I found helpful and was able to enlarge on my overhead for my displays included:
Wizards and Dragons: Stained Glass Coloring Book by Eric Gottesmanm, published by Dover Publications
Design Your Own Coat of Arms: An Introduction to Heraldry by Rosemary A. Chorzempa, published by Dover Publications
Medieval Times: Activity Book by Linda Milliken, published by Edupress, Inc.
Color and Learn: Medieval Times, published by Edupress, Inc.
Hands-On History: Middle Ages by Susan K. Gaylord, published by Scholastic
Coat of Arms by Datherine Daly-Weir, published by Grosset and Dunlap

I also suggest you try your local party story. I bet they would have Snow White or Cinderella items for girl's birthday parties. Have you tried Oriental Trading Company?

One of the teachers in my building used colorful penants and hung colorful material from the ceiling...draped it and it was very neat.

Attached is a wall picture of a dragon if it helps.

I find that if I photocopy a picture onto an overhead transparency I can then project it directly onto a large sheet of paper or cardboard, enlarging it to any size I want, and trace around the object. You could do knights this way.

Often colouring pages are good starting points:

http://www.coloring.ws/dragons1.htm
http://www.castles.org/Kids_Section/Castle_Story/activities.htm
http://www.edupics.com/en-coloring-pictures-pages-photo-knight-i9074.html
http://www.edupics.com/en-coloring-pictures-pages-photo-dragon-i9089.html

I have had the theme of castles for the past few years. Both the students and I love it! My whole classroom is based on this theme.
Castle Duties: King/Queen, Castle Attendant, Paper Pages, Throne Sitters (get to sit on the bean bags during silent reading), Royal Sweeper, and Money Lords (pay the students their BK Bucks they have earned. Bank of Knights Bucks-classroom money).
I have a Prince/Princess of the week. They wear a prince or princess crown during Friday's Friendship Circle while the students go around the circle and each give a compliment to the prince or princess of the week.
The students fight the mathematical dragon to pass off their math facts. They earn jewels for their crowns as they pass of their addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and mixed facts.
I decorate with castle art and frog princes.
I refer to the students as knights and ladies of the castle.
I teach 4th grade and both the girls and boys have loved this theme every year!

I teach sixth grade and decorated my room like a castle. I bought some "castle wall" looking corrugated cardboard and covered my door entrance way with it. I have a small metal knight (about 2 feet tall) on a stand at the entrance way. The outside bulletin board says "Mrs. Hughes Royal Court" with all the students names on the board. I have the bridge bulletin board set kind of as a moat underneath the bulletin board. Inside, I used an old set of gold curtains, and hung some purple material inbetween them and tied them with gold roping. I have a round table for my reading groups, and named all the groups names like jousters, etc. Just a few ideas-hope it helps.

With the castle theme
Use grey paper and wrinkle it up. Cut bricks out of it and put it them brick style on a black background with black mortar showing between the stone bricks. Place colorful flags flying along the sides and ramparts. The flags could have your students names written in calligraphy and trimmed with ribbons. Make the castle looked decked out for a medieval tournament.

Write On Good Knights

Once upon a story

Once upon a castle

Stories from the Court Jesters

Hear ye! Hear ye! Great Stories from the Castle

I did a medieval theme in my classroom. We had a great time decorating our room and participating in activities. One idea we used was a shield for rewards. Everyone created a shield with silver paper. I created small emblems to paste onto the shield with medieval designs. You can design it for whatever suits your classroom. It could be the books read, or something similiar. Hope that helps.

i used to do a medieval unit...

i used "king lexicon"...some unit by....can't remember the name...anyway, it focused on different language skills like alphabetizing and correct spelling and usage....i used that as a base for the idea OOH! i just remembered--it was an INTERACT unit.

i had a bulletin board with several layers...
knight was at top
below it was squire
below that was page
below that was peasant

and for some reason, i think i needed another level, so i called it "worthy" and it was above peasant...i think
anyway, every time they passed one of their skill strands, they got to move their name up--the bulletin board was made from "bricks" (rectangles) of grey const. paper, with arrow holes and turrets and recesses...i'm not remembering all the correct castle terms because it's been a few years!

anyway, when they got to each level, they received a clue--they were supposed to save/glue each clue in binder--they couldn't figure out the answer until they had the final clue because it told them to look up a word that was a synonym for bravery or something.... and the answer was chivalry. the first person who got the answer got a big prize.

you could use the same idea by every time someone earns 5 caughtya's or has no checkmark for the day or turns in all homework for the week...or whatever you're working on...they move up a level.