Individual Bulletin Board Space - Teacher Tip Tuesday

Today's Teaching Tuesday Idea is: Individual Bulletin Board Space

I once loved creating bulletin boards.

And by loved I mean LOVED.

I would plan them in my head and tweak them until the reality matched the vision.

At the risk of being institutionalized, I will admit that I have used actual levels and tape measures to perfect them.

Each was a work of art worthy of it’s own gallery premiere. People should have worn black dresses and tuxes as they sipped wine and stared in awe as they discussed the merits of my work.

And then the desire slowly fizzled and the demands grew and time became limited and priorities changed and now bulletin boards have become something else on the to do list. Occasionally, the creative bug will bite and I’ll go all old school and whip up a masterpiece, but for the most part I try to keep it simple.

I have a lot of “interactive bulletin boards” in my classroom now. These are things like word walls, a weekly language arts focus wall and my CAFÉ board that are ongoing throughout the year. But, there are those boards that need to be changed regularly. One simple way to do that is to create a board that is maintained by your students.

Provide each student with a space on the wall that belongs to him. You could hang a background paper and label it with the child’s name. Let the student select what he wants to display and allow him to put up the work he wants to showcase in that spot.

Below are a few simple options to make changing the work quick and easy:

• Slip a paperclip over the back of the construction paper background. The child can slip his work under the clip.
• Attach a self-sticking plastic clip (same effect as the paper clip, but more costly)
• Mount photo corners to the background paper. This looks very cool and artsy, but has some downfalls. The children are limited to the size of the work they can hang and some lack the fine motor skills to use the photo corners.
• Tie a line of string, twine or fishing line and provide each student with a clothespin that has his name on it to hang the work with.
• Staple a large Ziploc bag to the wall and let the students slip the work into the bag.