Use a sand castle bulletin board to cap off a lesson plan about the beach. Let children help design sand castles, then trace them and cut them out of yellow or beige paper. Glue yellow glitter onto the castle shape to make it look like sand. Create a beach scene around the castle and use it to demonstrate beach safety. Show children who are playing within sight of their parents and who are swimming under the supervision of a lifeguard.
To help teach children about shapes, make a castle entirely out of different shapes on the bulletin board. Each shape can be cut out in a different color of paper and labeled with its name in large block letters. Use a square for the main part of the building and octagons for the windows. Make turrets out of rectangles with triangles on top. Add royal characters standing near the castle using ovals for bodies and circles for heads.
Illustrate a unit about fairy tales by designing a bulletin board around a story. Start with just a plain cut-out castle shape on the board. Each day during the week of the lesson, let the children help you recreate a familiar fairy tale (or compose an original one). For instance, on Monday ask them to think up some different characters that live in the castle, and post paper dolls on the board. On Tuesday, decide what kind of animals live near the castle. Continue adding decorations to the board throughout the week.
Break children up into pairs or small groups and ask them to use imagination to design their own castle and their own kingdom. If the children are kindergarten age or older, ask them to make up rules or a basic government for the kingdom. Give them a single sheet of paper and craft supplies and ask them to create a picture of their castle, then post them all on a bulletin board. This exercise encourages teamwork and also gives children an introduction to how different societies are run.
Trace and cut out 52 small castle shapes. Write each one of the letters of the alphabet on two shapes. Use both the lower-case and upper-case version of each letter. Pin one of each letter castle around the outside edge of the bulletin board and store the other set nearby. Each day, spell out one "word of the day" in the center of the board using the castle letters. For any words that use the same letter twice, use the second set of letters.