If you are a teacher or if you are a student you know how important it is to design and to produce good classroom decoration. A well decorated classroom can make a huge difference, and many people don’t realize it. If you think back to your student days you know that your fondest memories are of times when you were in classrooms with bright decorations. The classrooms without any decorations, or with poor ones are either not remembered or they are only held in infamy. A child will feel excited about learning in an a bright, well organized environment that has obviously had a great deal of attention and work put into it. They will feel boored in an environment with little decoration. They might even feel like you don’t care about them if their classroom has little decoration. They might think that you are just there to get the job done and for no other reason. But how do you create a well decorated classroom? Do you paint the walls a fancy color and put stuff on them? Well, yes! What you need to do is use your bulletin board space. Realize that bulletin boards are a great resource for teaching as well as for decoration. Children look at them to get information and to figure out what is going on that day. This is partly why bulletin boards are an important part of teaching. On particular holidays you can help children understand the occasion. So how will you teach them about Valentine’s Day this year? This is a big and important holiday, and one that children are likely to misunderstand. Here are some ideas I brainstormed for great Valentine’s Day bulletin boards:
1. Create a candy gram for each child and put them up on the bulletin board. Find out what types of candy the children like and then cut out heart shapes. Paste the candy to the hearts, and when the children come in during the morning they will be very excited to see that each of them has some candy. They will also be very excited when you ask them the day before what their favorite candy is. This one will also help to teach them that valentine’s day is about giving something to all the people you like. This idea is truly a win-win.
2. A creative Valentine’s Day board. This board is something that the children make themselves on Valentine’s Day. It helps to promote their creativity and allows them to express how they feel about each other. The idea is that everyone needs to write something nice about someone else in the class. Assign each person someone to write about so that no person is left out. Allow the children to be creative-to draw a picture or write a poem to express themselves.
3. A story. You could turn your bulletin board into a Valentine’s Day story. The story should be about Valentine’s Day or about love. Have the children in your class read various parts of the story out loud. There are all sorts of possibilities for this sort of thing. Be creative and you will come up with something tremendous.
Just remember to use lots of different colors and shapes on your bulletin board. The key is to come up with a design that catches the eye of the students and keeps them excited to learn about valentine’s day. A teacher is one part educator and two parts entertainer. Your decorations are a big part of this entertainment. Good luck with your bulletin boards!