Welcome Back Bulletin Boards

I don't know about all of you, but one of my favorite parts of summer winding down is figuring out what to do for my back to school bulletin board. Like many other teachers, I have spent countless hours on Pinterest and Google to try to find the perfect one. On my back to school boards, I try to incorporate different topics we cover throughout the year and most importantly the students names.

As I walk down the hallways at school I love looking at the back to school boards, I feel like it gives me a sneak peak into that classroom. I also feel that back to school bulletin boards set the tone for the year. If you want you can base your whole classroom theme off the board.

This is going to be my fourth year teaching, so I want to share some of my welcome back boards with all of you. I have done:

 Miss Berman's Bucket Fillers- this one was based on the popular book, Have you Filled a Bucket Today? I love this book. For those of you haven't read it, it is about how everyone everyday carries around an invisible bucket. When people do nice things or give you compliments your bucket is filled. When people say mean things or do mean things their bucket is being emptied. It's a great beginning of the year book! The board was clouds with raindrops and on each rain drop there was something we learned in third grade. At the bottom, was was each kids name written on their own bucket.

WelGum to Miss Berman's Third grade class- a fairly simple one, but still in my opinion, super cute! It had a huge gumball machine. Inside the gumball machine were different gumballs with things we learn in third grade. Then on different gumballs were each kids name spilling out of the machine.

Let the Third Grade Games Begin- This was to go along with the Olympic Theme. The board was simple with Olympic rings and the students names were along the bottom on torches.

This year we are doing joint fifth grade bulletin boards. They are all based on different websites and technology themed, because fifth graders all bring their own technology, so we wanted to incorporate that into the board. One of the boards is a fifth grade wordle. If you are unfamiliar a wordle is a word cloud and one of my favorite websites to use with kids. The wordle is handmade and has all the different activities and subjects we do in fifth grade. The next one is a fifth grade pinterest board. This one tries to look like a main page on Pinterest with different boards representing the different subjects. The last one is going to be a fifth grade Facebook page. On meet and greet day the students are each going to fill out a sentence strip with a "status" and that is going to be our fifth grade news feed.



I know some people probably think I'm crazy for thinking so much at just one bulletin board at the beginning of the year that is going to be taken down in less than a month, however I think they are so important. (and I love making them!)

What are some beginning of the year bulletin boards you all have done?? I would love to hear some ideas! :)

Comments

  1. Ali, I think your bulletin boards are great. I think bulletin boards are also a great way to set the tone for the year and help students feel like you have created a fun classroom. Students may not know anything about your classroom and I feel like the way you have a classroom organized and decorated is a first impression. Students can see if you are organized, if you have spent time putting the room together they can see that you care about the room and how they treat it. One bulletin board idea I can share is "Health in Your Zip Code" I put the school's zip code in big numbers on the board (03865). Then under each number I give them a question/hint related to health and that number. The question is a flipcard so that the answer is under the card. For example, for the number 5, my question would be "eating the rainbow of foods everyday will keep you healthy and strong). The answer is 5 fruits and vegetables a day.

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    1. I love how you use the zip code as a trivia type of game! I might have to steal this idea. :)

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  2. Bulletin boards are the perfect way to set the tone for the year! It gives the students a glimpse of what is to come and what your style is. I also think that having an organized classroom is key. Like you, I love doing bulletin boards. I love how you merged technology with your boards. It takes the kids favorite sites and surrounds them during the school day. I am a big fan of interactive bulletin boards, like the bucket fillers one that you mentioned. My school does bucket filling and the kids love it!

    I teach kindergarten so my boards have to be a little simpler. Some of the ones that I have done for back to school are:

    Look Who's Hopping into Kindergarten - I have the kids names and pictures on frogs and the frogs are jumping from lily pad to lily pad.

    A New School of Fish - I designed 25 different fish, all very colorful, and put them on a blue board with seaweed (blue and green streamers). The kids names and pictures are written on the laminated fish. *The fish can also be used in June on a different bulletin board.*

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  3. I've done a space theme when I taught Kindergarten. I found some little spaceships and printed a picture of all the students faces that I took on the first day and posted them onto the spaceships along with their names. Then I put "In Kindergarten, anything is possible. Reach for the Stars". I added some glittery stars. The kids really loved seeing their pictures up on the wall.

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  4. You are so creative Ali! I do not put as much time into bulletin boards as I should because I am in a portable (all the 5th and 6th grades are due to space) and I don't have a big beautiful hallway bulletin board to display things on. In the classroom, the wall space I do have gets filled up with student work (mostly published writing) pretty quickly. I also have a math vocabulary wall and all my reading and writing anchor charts (eventually). Your creativity is inspiring me to bite the bullet and put some effort and energy into a welcome to 6th grade bulletin board. I think you're right, it will really set the tone for my new kiddos. Thanks!

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