Bulletin Boards

Hello there! I'm linking up with Angie from Lucky Little Learners and Ashley from Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd! I love how they have started monthly linky parties with specific collaboration posts to support one another #2getherwearebetter. 

A goal of mine this year is to take quality pictures. Sometimes it's easier to snap a picture with my cell phone but I'm promising myself to put in effort to use a digital camera when possible to improve the quality of my pictures that I want to share. 

I've had the luck of being in a portable with limited walls to moving to a classroom with curtain walls, you know those icky panel walls that fold like an accordion. Yup, basically no sturdy wall space for bulletin boards. 

Tip #1: Use doors as walls. Never fear, doors are dear. That is until your doors are not able to hold tape. For some reason my closet doors had some special film over them that anything I tried putting up would slide off. I tried duct tape, masking tape, super glue, double sided tape, packing tape, even hot glue. Other classrooms in my hall didn't have this problem, lucky me.

I was able to use yarn tied and taped from inside the door to finally hold up some things. I added a pocket chart to change out vocabulary words. Some parts of my doors "accepted" hot glue. And with the help of a command hook and lots and lots of hot glue later, I was even able to add my slightly heavy behavior clip chart made of cardstock.

Tip #2: Add some width to your wall. Yay for bulletin board, booooo to it being itty bitty. With a glue gun and some fabric I was able to make that small bulletin board wider. You can't even tell that the space under the fabric is whiteboard, and it's very easy to remove when you need to. Comes right off the whiteboard.

Tip #3: Laminate and go with fadeless paper. I like to use a combo of fadeless paper and fabric in my classroom. I stock up on fadeless paper at the beginning of the year with some coupons. It's a good investment if you plan on keeping your walls the same year after year. 

I like to laminate things that I know will be up all year long like student work displays, I just add to it, never really moving anything. This keeps it sturdy and I don't have to worry about the paper tearing or fading as I update the wall.

Tip #4: Student Friendly. I know sometimes I'm guilty of wanting cutesy things up. But I try to remember that ultimately what I put up needs to really benefit my little learners. Promote THEIR work, support THEIR learning with visual aids like vocabulary words, anchor charts you create WITH THEM. I know my students love to see when a sentence/idea they created or shared is added to our big chart paper. They gain a sense of pride that their idea is valued in our classroom. And I love when they refer back to their learning when the chart paper is displayed in the classroom.

And there it is friends! I'm in the process of planning my bulletin board wall spaces for 2015. I moved to a new room so I have a blank canvas to work with! I'm off to read more posts and make notes for inspiration. Go check them out here!