Back to School Bulletin Board Ideas for Back to School PAGE 1 | PAGE 2 | PAGE 3 Even More Ideas from ProTeacher Visitors! Bulletin Board By: Melanie The theme in my room this year is frogs, and so on my welcoming board I put "Look Who's Hopping Into 3rd Grade". I bought a picture of a large frog (Carson Dellosa) and one of those pads of paper that has frogs on it. I will put the names of all my student on their individual frog. bulletin boards By: Pam I focus on what the holiday is for that month, September I will have the kids do art work that represents themselves; draw a picture of themselves doing their favorite thing - integrate it into a getting to know you conversation. I like to have the bulletin boards show off the student's art work or accomplishments. They feel proud when they walk down the hall or into the room and see there work up for all to see! Colors By: Laurie In the past, I've had a bulletin board titled, "A Colorful Class." I had made a paintbrush and a color palette, decorating it with different paint colors. I took a picture of each of my students, cut their faces out, and pasted them onto construction paper of various colors. It's a bulletin board that can be put up in September and kept up all year long! theme for year By: maryellen I use a theme in a little different way. Each year we name our class, like a team. We've been the Penguin Class, Rowdy Raccoons, Friendly Frogs, etc. I use this theme for the "welcome" bulletin Board in September, the locker tags, the classroom newsletter (Penguin Pages, The Lily Pad), stickers on their report cards, classroom helpers etc. I decorate their news (show and tell) reports with the theme, bookmarks, class mascots, name tags on desks, classroom behavior contract poster. I try to teach a week long unit on that animal or theme at some point during the year. I like the "team" name instead of calling the group by a room number or grade. "Friendly Frogs just don't treat each other that way, do we? We're a team!" Like everyone, I do lots of other themes during the year in based on literature, centres, field trips, holiday themes etc, but the class name remains my background theme all year. I promise the class at the beginning there will never be another class named the same. Many years later, lots of the children can still tell me their Grade One class name. Up until three years ago I used to let them vote to decide on a class name, now I choose so I can locate all the special things I need over the summer. Next year we'll be the Astronaut Class, and do a new research and explore unit on Outer Space and the Planets. It would be fun to create some aliens in art. Our class newsletter might be called "The Rocket Review" and for Christmas I could get them those earth shaped bouncy balls. I think you'll enjoy a classroom theme. This Year Is Going To Be A Real Picnic By: Lu I have used the following bulletin board at the beginning of the year. The idea came from a Mailbox book. Cover the board with a red and white tablecloth, place paper plates with the subjects that the children will be studying this year written on them, then place ants all around the board (there is an Ellison die for the ants)finally add ketchup and mustard bottles to the board. The heading is "This Year Is Going To Be A Real Picnic" I almost forgot, I have also placed plastic cups with straws in them on the board and plastic forks in the plates. Re: Help! Bulletin Boards By: Anne My friend does a great hallway one for the first month. Black paper and she writes with chalk (like a chalk board) Welcome to blank's Class and all the children's names. It's eye catching quick and helps parents out when locating the classroom that first day or for Open House. In the class I dedicate a board for graphs done monthly we'll do bar/picto-graphs/pie charts/venn/clothes line/whatever. Word wall words: I start with a list of known words from K (just ask a K teacher) and build accordingly. race car bulletin board By: Margaret Last year I got race car Bordette, covered a bulletin board with black, made 2 checkered cloth flags with fabric and dowels which I crossed and place at the top of the board. In red were the words "Off to a good start." This was not a theme, but a "good work" bulletin board, which I change each month. Advertisement Picnic Bulletin Board By: RattlerGal Last year I did a Picnic BB with the words "Ant"icipating Great Things in Fifth Grade. I used ant die cuts from our Ellison machine, a red and white checkered fabric (from Wal-Mart) to replicate a table covering, and paper plates. Inside each paper plate I displayed photos from last year's class and included words of all the events students might look forward to in fifth grade such as D.A.R.E., the fifth grade trip, fifth grade week, field day, science labs, acing the standardized test, graduation, etc. The kids loved it! chicka chicka bulletin board By: LeeAnne I'm starting the year off with a jungle theme and I'm using "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" as an inspiration for my door decoration. (You could easily do this on a bulletin board.) I covered the door with blue paper. Then, I made a 3D palm tree by taking a carpet roll and cutting it in half so that it would lay flat and I could hot glue it to the door. Then, I cut out large leaves from green bulletin board paper (I used two shades of green to make it interesting.) I cut the sides of the leaves so that they would look serrated and I glued them to the top of the tree. I took pieces of brown paper and balled them up and glued them on to look like coconuts. Then, I bought an inflatable monkey from a party store ($2.99) and attached him to the tree. The caption on my door was, "We're Wild About Learning." However, I've seem people use "Chica Chica Boom Boom, Look Who's in Our Room." It really looks great and it didn't take too much time. Upcoming Attractions By: Janice I sometimes do a movie marquee board with a spotlight that I think I got on Microsoft Clip art, and the title "Upcoming Attractions". I attach (for example) the front cover of our morning work booklet, a math page, a list of school events, etc. Another BB idea that's helped out during a transition periods (like waiting for kids to finish their final copies of a writing project, or when I haven't had time to change a "scene" from month to month)is to make a large banner with "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" and a clip art pic of a hardhat character with saw and hammer. Bulletin Boards By: Robin I would think of the first "welcome back" project I was going to have the kids do and display their work on it. For example, if I was going to have them make tee shirts about themselves, I might title the board "A Great Line-up" and do a clothes line. Once the students have done actual work, you could display work on it. You also might want to have the board for social studies/science and display your maps, teaching posters etc. on it. You could also have one for class jobs, the schedule, menu etc. bulletin board By: maribeth petery Create a bulletin board about yourself. include real items like your elementary report cards, class pictures, family photos, etc. keep it up for a few weeks, give a quiz from it, cover it and keep it in the same place for next year. build new bulletin boards on top of it throughout the year. Picnic Bulletin Board Idea By: Julie This past September we made a board for 3rd grade with a fabric backdrop. It was a picnic table cloth pattern (red and white checker board) with ANTS! It looked fantastic! I bought the fabric on discount at Wal-Mart. Then using paper plates the kids wrote a short story about their summer. It Looked just like a picnic! We even attached napkins and plastic food. Hope this gives you a spark for an idea! Bulletin Board ideas By: NJ Teacher One of my fellow teachers did a great door that could become a board called Diving Into Third Grade. She used toilet paper rolls to make the bodies of divers, and she glued photocopies of the divers onto the rolls. She picked up a fishing net and attached the divers to the net with hooks, and she also had small, child-sized rubber flippers attached to the door to add additional atmosphere. I did a jukebox theme last year. I had purchased a large paper juke box and it came with a class set of records. The board was titled Ms. _______'s Hits. Another teacher did the Twister theme. She decorated by making a twister game board and wrote, Look Who "Twisted" into Grade Three. On the colored circles for each student, she took a digital picture of each person. This year, I am going to do a treasure chest theme and do Ms. _____'s Treasures. Oriental Trading has small treasure chest boxes, and I also found a treasure chest bulletin board kit online. One of our second grade teachers did Dalmatians on year, and did Look Who Has Been Spotted in Grade 2! as her theme. frog bulletin boards By: BDB26 I did a frog bulletin board last year because I had a frog theme. I love frogs! So my bulletin board was titled "Leap into Learning" and I used the frog cut outs by Carson-Dellosa that show frogs jumping everywhere. I put a huge lily pad on it and made cat tails out of construction paper and pipe cleaners. I used the frogs that were not jumping as corners for the construction paper that backed the students' work. It really turned out cute. Hollywood Theme By: jane I once did a bulletin board with the caption "In the Spotlight". I framed the board with fabric curtains and with yellow paper put a spotlight in the center of the board. During the year, each child in my class had a turn to present himself on this board, photos, awards, writing pieces, etc. This may also work with your theme. "OSCAR" ....Our Students Care About Reading! "WALL OF FAME" Use foil stars from the party store and each child has a star to showcase their work. And, how about a red carpet runner to enter your classroom? Western Theme Bulletin Board By: Amanda Maybe something to the effect of "These Students Don't HORSE Around When It Comes To Schoolwork" Or if you wanted to put up a bulletin board that talked about the student's summer you could have it say, "We Had A Rootin Tootin Summer", on Meet the Parent's Night. When School starts you could let the students finish the board by having them do an activity that tells what they did during the summer, and post it on the board. It would be cute to take a picture of them with a cowboy hat on, and then post it next to their written paragraph of their summer. It would also be cute to write the paragraph on lines inside of a photo copied Cowboy Hat. Back to School Bulletin Board By: Beth I use "Mrs. ________ Class Rocks!" ( Fill in your name) I put up a giant plastic record from a party store and large back music notes and sometimes a jukebox (also from a party store) and then I put each student's name on a small black music note in metallic marker. I put music border around the whole board as well. The kids love it and I've gotten lots of compliments on it! Interactive bulletin board By: Tonya We just did our bulletin board this month. We titled it "The ABCs of kindergarten". We started with a blue background and made grass along the bottom and clouds in the sky. We then placed alphabet die cuts across the board. Underneath each letter we placed a labled picture of each student whose name began with that letter. We then placed die cuts of flowers and butterflies to fill in underneath the letters we had no or few pictures for. It turned out really cute. Visit our ProTeacher Community For individual use only. Do not copy, reproduce or transmit. Copyright © 2006 ProTeacher