Download the article
This article was written in collaboration with wikiHow writer Amy Bobinger. Amy Bobinger has been a writer and editor at wikiHow since 2017. She especially enjoys writing articles that help people overcome interpersonal obstacles, but she often covers a variety of topics, including health and wellness, spirituality, gardening, and more. Amy graduated from Mississippi College with a BA in English in 2011 and now lives in her hometown with her husband and her two young children. This article has been viewed 35,082 times. Know more…
Having a cheery bulletin board at school is a great way to help students feel engaged and motivated before class even starts. Even better, there are countless designs and uses for these boards, so you can customize your design based on your current curriculum, upcoming school events, vacations, and more. You can even include students and other faculty on multiple interactive screens!
Decide on a topic for the meeting. The first step in decorating your bulletin board should be choosing a theme. Think about the purpose of the board, such as welcoming students to your classroom or encouraging them to read. Then choose a fun color scheme or theme to tie it all together, and choose decor to match that theme.[1]
- For example, if you’re making a back to school board, you might choose to “Jump to Mrs. Taylor’s class!” as her theme, then decorate it with frogs and lilies labeled with your students’ names.
- If you need help coming up with ideas for your newsletter display, school calendars, holidays, and upcoming lesson plans can be great sources of inspiration.
Cover the board with craft paper for a colorful background. Once you’ve chosen the colors for your board, choose a solid-colored craft paper and completely cover the back of your board. You may need to overlap two sheets of paper to ensure you cover the board from top to bottom.[2]
- For your frog-themed bulletin board, you can use a blue background to make it look like a pond, for example, or you can choose brown to make it look like mud.
- For a festive plate, you can use wrapping paper instead of craft paper. However, avoid using anything with an intricate pattern or multiple colors, as a busy background will make your design hard to see.[3]
- You can find large rolls of craft paper at your local craft or classroom supply store.
Create borders to match your color scheme for a defined look. If you like the look of more traditional bulletin boards, you may want to add a border. Fortunately, you can buy ready-made bulletin board borders at most craft stores, classroom supply stores, and online. Pick one that goes with your design, then clip it into place.[4]
- Trims come in a variety of colors and patterns, including stripes, polka dots, zigzags, and more.
- You can also make your own border if you want, or you can skip it entirely.
Put important information in large letters at eye level. When planning the decoration of the plaque, think about the message you want to convey. Then place any information at approximately adult eye level and try to make it slightly larger than the other details on the board.[5]
- For example, you could put the phrase “Jump into Mrs. Taylor’s class!” on your school board. about a third of the board, in large, bold letters.
- If you are making a board for an upcoming school dance, you can put “Winter Formal” in large letters at the top of the board with a slightly smaller date below.
Add bright, colorful decorations to match your theme. Once you’ve set up your background and basic information, choose fun cutouts, illustrations, or photos to decorate your board. Try not to overload the board, but try to add enough detail so that you don’t end up with large empty spaces in your design.[6]
- You can add some big frogs to your school board and then write a student’s name on each lily pad. Arrange the lilies so that they are grouped in the lower two-thirds of the board, and place the frogs in the upper corners of the board.
Create a new board to match each unit your class is learning. If you’re decorating a whiteboard in your classroom, consider updating it each time you move on to a new class unit. This can help keep students engaged in what they’re learning, and your classroom will feel fresh and exciting all year long since you’ll have a constantly rotating feed of bulletin board topics.
- For example, if you are teaching multiplication in the first quarter and division in the second quarter, you might start with a board that contains multiplication tables and then move on to a grouping board.
Try this idea! Create a word search or crossword puzzle using words from the unit your class is studying.
Try a selfie board to encourage students to celebrate success. If you regularly email photos of your students to parents, consider setting up a selfie station in your classroom or hallway. Decorate your board with a simple and eye-catching design that will look great in photos. Then, whenever your students have a success worth celebrating, record them in front of the board![7]
- For example, your dashboard might say something like “Star Reader!” You can decorate the board with stars. Then, every Monday, you can take a picture of the top 3 reading students in your class for the previous week and post it on your class website.
- Consider creating a classroom hashtag that you can put on the board!
Use your board to celebrate the upcoming holidays. If there’s something coming up on the calendar that you think your students will be excited about, consider making a whiteboard to celebrate! For example, you might create a bulletin board to remind students to read over summer break, a flag-themed board to mark Veterans Day, or a mittens and snowmen board before the break. of winter.[8]
- To be sensitive to students’ differing beliefs, avoid boards that highlight specific religious holidays. However, a multicultural board that covers celebrations from different cultures, such as winter holidays or global New Year festivals, may be fine.
Celebrate Spiritual Week with a board listing each day’s theme. During Holy Week, each day will have a theme, and students may be encouraged to wear clothing that matches these themes. These spirit days can be for the whole school, although sometimes certain grades or classes will have their own themes. If you want to participate, make a board in your school colors and include a poster with a theme for each day.[9]
- For example, your board might say: “Monday: Sock Day, Tuesday: Weird Hair Day, Wednesday: Weird Hair Day,” and so on.
Create a board that lists your classroom goals or rules. If you want to make a board that you can put up all year, consider posting a list of affirmations, goals, or rules in your classroom. These visual reminders can be a great way to help students through the school year.[10]
- To keep the meeting feeling positive, try framing the rules as “Things we must do” rather than “Things we mustn’t.”
- Goals can include things like achieving a certain score on standardized tests or reading a certain number of books over the course of a year. You can even include a chart to track the class’s progress toward the goal!
Use the board to share when students are caught being nice. A great use for school bulletin boards is to ask students to share anonymously when they see another student doing something nice for someone else. Then post those accomplishments on the board to show how good your students are![11]
- If you want, you can ask other teachers to contribute to the whiteboard instead of the students.
Ask students to help decorate the board to keep them busy. If you’re designing a new whiteboard in the middle of the semester, try to get your students involved! Have each student write, draw, or decorate one item on the board, then feature them all in the finished design![12]
- For example, if the theme of your board is “Reach for the Stars,” you could give everyone a paper cutout of an arm and a hand to decorate.
- If your theme is “Future Careers,” you could have each student write down what they would like to be when they grow up.
Create a Student of the Week board to recognize outstanding students. Students love to brag, and an achievement bulletin board is a great way to do it! Feature a different student or group of students each week, including a little about each person and what they did to earn the recognition.[13]
- Try to rotate your students for the week so that each student has a chance to be recognized, rather than focusing on the same top achievers each week.
- For example, your board might say: “Hats off…”. Then she can decorate the board with a hat with the student’s name and picture on it.
Try hosting a bulletin board contest between classrooms for a fun competition. If each classroom in your classroom has its own blackboard, consider inviting each class to decorate their own blackboard. Then ask the principal or teachers in another room to grade the boards when they are done. Be sure to get feedback from your students for your board design![14]
- Consider a prize like a pizza party or extra recess for the winning class.
- You could also organize a student art contest and hang the winners on your whiteboard.
Categories: How to
Source: HIS Education