Bulletin Board Ideas for the Christian Classroom

  

If you teach in a Christian school, or even teach Sunday school or lead in some way work in children's ministry, I have a sneaky way to immerse your students and help them learn God's Word.... BULLETIN BOARDS!

In my school, probably like every other school across the country (and around the world!) our hallways are lined with bulletin boards, and our students will take advantage of any opportunity to look at a bulletin board if they are walking down the hall. Frequently, I see students pausing to read something on the bulletin boards as they walk to/from the restroom, more than likely in an attempt to spend as much time wandering as they can! So, if we have the opportunity to use it to minister to them and embed God's Word into their hearts... why not!?

It started with my lack of ideas for craftivities to display, and morphed into this idea over the course of my last few boards. I like trying to inspire my students, and let's face it - MYSELF - with God's Word in every way I can. We spend most our time living in the world and not The Word, so I strive to put The Word into the world as much as I can.

Here are some of my ideas... I hope they will inspire you with ideas and verses to use in your classroom, school, church, whatever!

We'll start with my most recent board and work backward. It's a hymn I hear in church a lot, particularly when we give the offering, and it was stuck in my head each time I tried to come up with an idea for the board about thankfulness. I simply printed the letters one per page from the computer with the font KG Summer Storm Smooth and cut them out. The background is wrapping paper I found on Amazon. I plan to leave it up all year. I love geometric print and orange is my favorite color! The goal is to put it up the one time, and make it work for all four seasons! I did the same thing last year..which you can read about here in this post! I have to say, this board is probably one of my all-time favorites. I just love the clean look of it, and that tissue paper is so great. Cheap, yet the look of burlap. I also love the arrows >>>  on trend. (not that I'm tooting my own horn, or anything!)

This was my board I used for Back to School this year. I love how the teal can read "all ways acknowledge Him" inside of the whole verse itself. My classroom colors are turquoise/teal & orange, so I made the board to match. I cut out letters on a Cricut machine with two different cartridges. It was a lot of letters (I laminated them all too!) but so worth it. I loved reading this verse over and over every time I left my classroom. I hope my students did too!
The borders are from Creative Teaching Press. When it came time to change it, I just took down the teal, left the white (which has flat edge showing, the wavy edge is hidden behind the teal) and used tissue paper to make the border on the new board up above. I just cut each piece of tissue paper in half and scrunched & stapled it along the edge. Just 2 packs made the whole board!

                      

These doors are from the fall of the past two years. I just love them both, for different reasons. You can see I love chevron. Both are borders from Creative Teaching Press as well. I used wrapping paper for the board on the left from Target. The board on the right is a verse from the book of Psalms, with pumpkin cut outs from Creative Teaching Press.

                                     

These are doors I did at Christmas for the past two years. The one on the left is one of my favorite craft projects. My students pain the lights, then glitterize them with their names. I used a light bulb clip art from Krista Wallden at Creative Clips in black and white that I enlarged and copied onto cardstock. We used the verse from Matthew about letting our light shine before others.

The board on the left is from last Christmas. I love reading the books The Legend of the Candy Cane and The Candymaker's Gift each year, then comparing and contrasting the two stories. We connected it to a craftivity last year, glitterizing candy canes. (I LOVE GLITTER!) I also posted a little sign I made, summarizing the Legend of the Candy Cane. I love how the teal chevron wrapping paper looks against the red - such a great color contrast! Again, all borders are from Creative Teaching Press. They make fantastic borders that go with everything!

I am always on the look out for fun printed wrapping paper when I go to Target. They always have the cutest paper! I stock up on one or two, and try to come up with a board from the paper. I just bought some adorable black and red plaid paper for this Christmas, and can't wait to come up with a new board and update this post to show you!

 This board is a tad busy, even for me. I called it my "pattern mixing" board, which I love to do with my fashion. I used some animal print pink wrapping paper from Target, and (you guessed it!) Creative Teaching Press brown chevron border. I cut out a bunch of random hearts from scrapbook paper I had on hand, and wrote my students names on them. The heart in the middle was a sign I picked up at Target as well, adding in the verse John 3:16 for Valentine's Day. The teal letters are from Dollar Tree! They seriously have the best stuff for teachers.

 It's not one of my most favorite executions, but it's cute nonetheless.

This board to the right is one of my absolute favorites as well. I apologize for the poor picture quality! This was as I was beginning my blogging and Instragramming days, and I didn't focus too much on how to take high quality pictures.

Anyhow, it is one of my favorite songs from Britt Nicole, You're Worth More Than Gold. Here's a link to her on YouTube in case you've never heard of her or this song. I love it!

Anyhow, I cut the letters out on the Cricut here at school to look like a rainbow and cut the word "gold" out of gold glitter scrapbook paper. I used clip art rainbows & clouds from Scrappin Doodles and overlaid a text box for my students' names. I also used the leftover gold glitter paper to make little gold coins, like the pot at the end of the rainbow. I made it in March around St. Patrick's Day. I did this one at least 3 years ago... maybe it's time for an update! If so, I'll post it for you to see this year's spin on it! :)


I'll also be sure to update this post in the future with more bulletin boards with Bible verses and Christian classroom inspiration for you, your students, and your school!


Do you have some to share? I'd love to see them and feature them here! Send them to mrstamilynnmo@aol.com so we can inspire students and teachers in Christian classrooms (and churches) around the world!

I have a slight clothing and school supply addiction, so this post contains Amazon affiliate links to help keep my bank account in the black! 

Happy Fall, y'all!

Hey friends!

Just dropping by real quick to show you my new classroom door decor! It's actually quite simple and will last well into fall :)

I used brown chevron border from Creative Teaching Press with a plain orange border in the middle to break up the pattern, The background is wrapping paper from Target. I enlarged Creative Clips digital clip art for the trees and pumpkins and printed out the letters using the KG Second Chances Sketch font. My students created the leaves. I printed a black-line leaf onto white cardstock. They used tissue paper squares I got at Lakeshore and wrapped them around the end of an unsharpened pencil, dipped them in glue, and stuck them on until the filled it up. It was a sweet, simple craft for a sweet, simple fall door!

Have a blessed fall, friends! :)

Exciting News, Riveting Robots & MORE Chevron!

Hey there!

I am excited to announce that I will be pairing up with Creative Teaching Press to receive and review their products here on my blog! What's more exciting is.... I will be able to do GIVEAWAYS so you can have a chance at trying out their products too! YAY!

So, to kick it off, I am going to show you how I have been using some of their newer [and cuter] lines in my classroom this year!

The first is their Riveting Robots! Each year I have had a theme in my classroom. The first year I used stars everywhere and had a star calendar and star job chart. Last year I used owls. I love owls and have an overall general chevron theme going, but I wanted a new calendar, job chart, and additional theme since I have had the same students the past couple of years. I was shopping at Lakeshore one day [teacher heaven!] and saw these cute gears and robots borders. I did some digging on the CTP website and was hooked! I decided that the owls had been more of a girly theme [as most are, being that they are décor items] so I figured the boys would appreciate this theme a bit more :)

Here's a look at how I used them:

I decided to make my hallway bulletin more permanent this year to display student work, and change the covering on my door periodically instead [see below for my doors so far this year!] On the right is the permanent work display with their Dots on Turquoise Border, and on the left I used the Nuts & Bolts poster from the Riveting Robots Bulletin Board Set.  I love mixing patterns, so the Target wrapping papers and polka dot borders were fun to mix and match!

 

Here's how I use the poster more specifically: since it says "The Nuts & Bolts of" and leaves it open-ended for a variety of uses, I decided to use it to display our "objectives" or broad learning concepts in each subject. Bible is changed weekly to include our unit focus and memory verse, but the others change less frequently. I laminated it and use a dry erase marker so I can change, add, and or remove things as often as I need. I like displaying it in the hallways for parents and visitors to see what we're working on! I also used the gear to show what we will be working on in the near future!

 

 

 

To make attendance a bit more visual [and to cover my not so attractive desk!] I used the Riveting Robots Designer Cut-outs with some chevron contact paper I found on Amazon. I wrote my students' names and laminated them for durability all year, and added magnets to the back. My little "robots" report each day to show if they are absent or present. It's just a fun, silly way I brought in the robots some more :)

 

 

 

I [of course] had to buy a new calendar set & job chart to match my other new robot themed items! Since I have a lack of wall space and A LOT of windows, I decided to make my window my calendar space. Since we are in 3rd grade now, I don't feel the need to have a calendar time/morning meeting everyday. Instead, the calendar is one of my classroom jobs. We use window markers from Pat Catan's in bright colors to write the regular date and digital date below the calendar itself :)  The days of the week and weather report are below the window on the wall.

 

 

 

Of course the job chart needed a fun title to it [in 1st grade they were "Star Helpers" and last year they were "Owl-fully Helpful!"] This year, they are my "Handy Helpers!" :)

 

Lastly, I used the corresponding gears border [my favorite of the whole line!] and robot cut-outs to make my door covering to kick off the new year.... we were "Gearing Up for Third Grade!"

 

 

My only regret was not ordering the matching letters they have for this line. When I was shopping at Lakeshore they had some items for the line, but not all of them. So I had to go online to buy the other pieces I needed/wanted. I had already bought the above set of letters, so I made them work. But I am thinking I am going to have to get the matching nuts and bolts style lettering for future use.

 

What do you think of the Riveting Robots line?!? Leave some comments below and let me know! I personally love, as did the boys in my class!! What is great about it, too, is there are many colors and patterns mixed into everything so it can easily go along with many of the items you already have. If you have primary colors, polka dots, grays and blacks, chevron - it matches them all! and the robots are lots of fun!:)

 

Speaking of chevron..... CTP has some FANTASTIC new borders out that are ChEvRoN!! I just had to have them when I saw them online. Many of the colors were back-ordered in August, so I had to wait on a couple of them, but I did get a few others. I am eyeing some more of them too! As I said above [and you can see in my pictures] I have a lot of chevron going on. So I had to have the borders.. I am also using their chevron nameplates on my students' desks. I took a tip from Pinterest and use Velcro to attach them to the desks - no more tape mess! I also took ANOTHER idea from Pinterest and laminated them now. Now my students practice writing their first and last name in neat cursive everyday with a dry erase marker. We just started this after returning from Christmas break and it is working well.  Here's a look at them and a link to see them all:

 

These are the Chevron Name Plates we are currently using:

 

Since our desks open upward, we keep the markers hooked on upside down and they won't fall off whenever we open our desks :) 

 

At the beginning of the year I was using these name plates I picked up at Lakeshore:

I ran out of the turquoise and orange which I had used to start the year, so I bought the newer chevron ones since they were all I could find. Now, on CTP's website I discovered they have other chevron name plates in solid colors that I'm liking better for next year!

 

 

This is their Turquoise Chevron Border around my dry erase board.. it looks more aqua blue on the website, but it is a true turquoise in person!

 Valentine's door using Chocolate Chevron Border:

 

 

Christmas door - wishing I had the Poppy Red Chevron Border instead! hopefully next year :) 

 

 

 Fall door using Orange Chevron Border and Pumpkin Designer Cut-Outs:

 

What I like most about the borders [beside the fact that they are chevron ;)] is the width. They are 3" wide, compared to border that is curvy. It gives a clean, bright edge.... especially on those pesky bulletin boards! Do you have any of their chevron borders? What colors do you have, and what do you think of them!? I currently have what you see above, along with the Slate Grey. My wish list includes the Poppy Red and Lime Green too!

 

 

Well, I think that's all for today.... whew, I'm tired! :)

 

Have a blessed week, and stay warm!

Tami :)

 

 

 

week one.... done!

I started back to school with my students on Tuesday and what an AMAZING week we had! I moved up to 3rd grade this year, and throughout my prep time over the past few weeks with my fellow teacher [who has moved up from Kindergarten] I started to feel nervous and overwhelmed with all we were discovering we would be teaching....and grading. It may not seem like a big deal to some of you, but to me, taking grades is major. These are permanent on a report card and mean something big to both the parent and the student. I don't take assigning grades lightly.....and sometimes I'm too nice. I want to take into account their work, their effort and their love while I grade. I find it hard to just crunch the numbers and say that what they get is what they get. I don't want them to feel badly and I don't want parents to wonder how their child did or didn't do so well. I don't know... maybe I'm just paranoid. I think part of it is my type-A/OCD personality. But knowing we had to grade Bible and handwriting, plus science, social studies and health, I became overwhelmed at the thought. In first and second grade and I didn't assign many grades...mostly checks and pluses [rarely some minuses, thankfully!] So this is new for me. Especially Bible. We always do that together and there are very few unit reviews to assign grades on so I with very little actual grades for the whole year, one bad assessment could mean a low grade. How can I do that to my students?! It breaks my heart and again....overwhelms and worries me.
So, I had to take a step back. I had to PRAY [of course!] I knew I could only do this with God's strength and I could only do it by taking it one step, one day at a time. We haven't gotten to any quizzes or tests just yet, so I'll wait until they come. I'll work hard, prepare my students and pray with them before each one. I'll communicate with them about everything they are expected to know and do my best to serve them everyday. It's all I can do, and I feel a lot better about it. I still am nervous, but I know that the first report card is a several weeks away.. I need to enjoy teaching until that time. I can't be nervous all day, everyday for 9 weeks, four times a year. THAT'S INSANE!

Here I am on the first day of school! :) My shirt is chevron to match my classroom décor... that was my hubby's suggestion! haha

Okay... so back to our first week. It was wonderful, as I said. My students are adorable and were so excited to be back in school. Most of my class has been with me for the past 2 years, so introducing routine and expectations wasn't hard. It was nice having a large group who already knew what to do and when to do it, so others could follow their lead.

We did a multitude of activities and we jumped right into learning [I don't mess around! ;)]

One activity we did was cute. I of course saw it on Pinterest at some point over the last year and it was a success on the first day of school. I told my students that I expect a lot from them and they have a lot they are responsible for as students of our classroom and school. What I wanted to know is what they expect of me as their teacher. They thought that was so cool they got to tell me how I should be towards them, so I passed out Post-Its and let them to it.

Some wanted to write more than others.. so my chart paper was filled pretty quickly LoL!

 

You can see at the top that I have one that is separate. I told the students that I would hang that in the classroom all year, so that every morning I arrived it would be one of the first things I see and would remind me to be what they want and need in a teacher. One really stood out. Among the many "fun," "caring," "nice," and "lovings" was an amazing and inspiring request... "Let God lead you." WOW. An eight year wrote that. Talk about divine. She thought above and beyond and wrote something I knew I would need to read on a daily basis; something I would need to meditate on every morning to start my day.

 

Have I mentioned how incredibly blessed I am? I mean, really. To have a student write that they want a teacher who is led by the Lord is inspiring, amazing and a dream come true. Especially since I've had her for the past two years....must be doing something right, huh!? ;)

Well, the rest of the week was a breeze. I feel like I'm not teaching enough and it felt so easy, simple. It was a great first week. The students had so much fun learning and we did lots of review. I learned a lot about them and we prayed together several times. It was blessed and a great start to a great year. I can only imagine what God has planned for our classroom the remainder of the year. I'm sure it will be nothing short of awesome!

Have a blessed day!
Tami :)

 

Remember Me? [part two]

I'm back again, and quickly this time! :) I promised I would post more often, and by the title of my last post, I HAD to post at least a part two [if not a part three here shortly].

I was back at work in my classroom again yesterday. I got a lot of detail things I had thought about doing done! Most teachers probably don't decorate their rooms to the extreme with which I do, but it's just my personality and I can't help it. I definitely type-A and extremely detailed oriented [and also a tad geeky!] the little accents and things here and there are what really get me pumped! lol

So here's a look at my classroom yesterday standing from my doorway:

What do you think? In my last post it looked pretty much the same. I just got the students' nameplates and Take Home Binders [look for a post about those coming soon!] done and added something to the front of my desk. I also changed up my Reading Corner off to the left there.

I had put my new robot calendar [that I just LOVE] on the wall above the papasan chair near the reading corner. But I just didn't like it there. Last year my calendar was on the middle window [now behind my desk] and loved it being on the window. So I changed up the Reading Corner and took the Book Bin shelves away from the window and put the calendar on it. I then put the book bin shelves against the wall where the calendar was and it looks much better! I just want a rug to put over there now! [in time...because of course the one I want and I won't settle for less is a bit pricey, so I'm waiting for my next TpT payment in September! lol]

So here's how it looks now:

 

I like it so much better.....don't you!?

Here's my Book Bin shelves I was able to finish yesterday too! I got my class list Wednesday [yayy!] so I was able to make the tags and get them finished up. Here's the complete look:

                                                          

and here's how I set them up:

                               

Everyone has their own bin. They will keep their Read to Self books, Reading Group books, bookmarks and a small pack of Kleenex in there. [This idea dawned on me last year when I had a few girls ALWAYS needing to blow their noses while they were reading. This will prevent that. You know those 3 pack of purse-size tissues are only 99 cents - and saves their "hassle" ;)]
I numbered the shelves so they keep their bin with their number. They'll always be in the same place and I won't have to re-number them year after year.

The clips are new for this year; something I am trying. Last year I had a problem with them taking TOO MANY BOOKS! No matter how many times we talked about taking only 6 or 7, they would take at least 3 times that. Well not this year. I am going to number the clips to make their numbers and they are only allowed to take as many books as they have clips. They can take a clip back when they return a book. Right now everyone has 4 clips, but that's because I didn't buy that many when I picked them up at a flea market. I didn't exactly have a plan for them at that time, so two packs seemed sufficient....wrong! So I'm planning to stop out today and pick up a few more.... I think I will give everyone 6, perhaps 8 but I'm not sure. How many do you allow your students to take? Any input would be great!

Yesterday I also put up my behavior management clip chart. I made a new one this year to match the chevron [of course!] and hung it in a new spot. It looks great, I think!

I made matching behavior calendar logs as well. They are available in my TpT store here if you decide you really like it! I posted it on there because whenever I looked for a system I liked, the behavior logs didn't exactly match the clip chart because they were always separate files by different Teacher Authors. Chevron is a huge new craze and the colors match just about any "theme" so I thought it would be about time that someone offered BOTH together to correlate easily. Let me know if you decide to get them and how they work out for you! :)
You'll notice next to it the Homework Club display. It's a round cookie sheet from the Dollar Tree that I hung. I got the Homework Club sign, numbers and idea use from the TpT store of 4th Grade Frolics here for FREE! I love it and hope it will be a great incentive for my students to do their homework! We shall see..... ;)

Well, that's all for this post... I have lots more to show and say but my Hubby wants me to bring him lunch at work :) so I'm off to pick us up some Panera [yum-o!]
I'll definitely be back with a part three [and who knows, maybe even a part four] some time soon [maybe even later tonight]....

Until then, thanks for reading and have a BLESSED day!

Tami :)

Remember Me? [part one]

REMEMBER ME!?

I know.. it's been a looooong time since my last post! It's been crazy busy around here, but I'm back and promise to post more - so please hold me accountable to that!

So, here's what's been going on.... last time I posted I had moved up to 2nd grade and looped with my students! Second grade was wonderful and I absolutely LOVED it! This year, though... I'm moving up AGAIN! I'm headed to 3rd grade! I don't think I am truly looping with my kids again, but I will have a majority of them for a third time... I just don't have my class list yet! [fingers crossed it comes today!]


I've been quite inspired by Pinterest over the summer [aren't we all?!] and my newest craze is ChEvRoN! So, I thought I'd give y'all a peek into my classroom! It's not quite done all the way, still waiting on some chevron border I bought from Creative Teaching Press ....it's been back-ordered since July! I'm hoping it comes in soon. We don't start back until after Labor Day [lucky, I know!] so I still have time... I'm just impatient!

So to start with chevron craziness, I made my own curtains for my classroom this year! Last year, I really wanted to find white cotton valances [harder than it sounds!] for cheap and tye dye them. Well, I never found them. The ones I did find would have been $20 per panel, and I would have needed about 5-6 of them... a little too much for my wallet at the time. I'm glad I didn't end up finding them. As fun as they would have looked, I LOVE the ones I ended up with this summer!
So, I bought some gray and white chevron fabric from Hobby Lobby with my nifty 40% off coupon and got 8 yards for about $35. I also bought this fabric "tape" instead of ribbon to give it a fun accent. I bought 5 different colors for each panel. Then, I just used a heat bond adhesive to put it all together. I don't own a sewing machine, and if I did I don't know how to use it..... so this was the easy option!

Here's what the process looked like:

I just used my iron and my eyes to make the creases straight. The zig zags of the chevron pattern help make it straighter but also help camouflage any mistakes too!
After I made one using the curtain rod I had at home [I knew it was the same as what I had at school] I took it to my classroom to see how it looked. It fit perfectly but it didn't look full, so I decided that I need 2 per panel. I have a large window at the back of my room with two windows side-by-side, and I knew that one would need 3 panels.... so I had a lot of work to do!
The thing about the fabric I bought that I didn't realize until I got it, was that the chevron pattern didn't run continuous over the whole 8 yards, it ran the opposite way. It ended up working out, as the 44" width it came was the way my pattern ran, and all my panels ended up the same width. I just had to cut them to be the same length. Once I made the first one to the length I liked, I just measured it all and got the rough length to cut the rest of the panels.

So here's a close up of all the panels done with their colors!

I have 3 windows that are a standard size... those are the green, pink and orange. The teal panels are my large back window. Then, the yellow is the extra fabric I had left and I made it to cover part of a tall shelf I have for Word Work activities. Since it's so tall, I can cover the top half of items I use mainly as storage and the bottom is open for the kids. I just hung that one with a tension rod [that of course didn't fit!] and two hooks.

Here's a look at them hanging in my classroom:

What do you think? I just LOVE them! They feel so homey and will match just about anything I do down the road!

You can see a bit from here I have a lot of chevron going on...

I made and hung rainbow colors/chevron patterned pennants from my ceiling randomly. I love hanging things from the ceiling! :)

Over where the book bins are, I used gray and white chevron contact paper to line the shelves. I'll be making a chevron mini pennant banner that says "book bins" to hang over the window [check for a part 2 or 3 of this blog in the coming days!]

The new décor I bought this year is probably some of my favorite.... along with the library... and the curtains...... who am I kidding - I love it ALL so far! haha

But here's what I'm talking about:

I found a lot of these on Pinterest and printed them off. I just love how they look on the wall! They serve as great reminders and inspirations for myself and my students.

This is my absolute favorite of all! I just loved this metal sign when I saw it at Hobby Lobby. I went back for it and got it half off a few weeks later and it looks awesome! It's one of the first things you see when you look/walk into the room and will be a great reminder each morning :)

I made a reading corner this year that is not a part of the class library so the kids have another place to relax and read! This is a small stand I had leftover from my days at home living in a cramped bedroom with my little sister [LoL!]. Again, I used the contact paper and put the flowers I had left from a bridal shower for [one of] the wedding I was in over the summer. Above this awesome sign I [again] found on Pinterest, I have a ribbon board. I am going to ask my students to bring in pictures of themselves with their families to keep in the classroom over the year. Just another idea I found on Pinterest and adapted to my room!

Okay....here's the last picture I'll post for today...

My class library! I just LOVE it!

I got the bench/storage seat at Target for more places to relax and added book storage. I also brought in the white cube storage shelf I got on sale at Target [LOVE that store, obviously] for more book storage. I accumulated a ton more books this year. Between donations, garage sales and good deals at the store I stocked up on a bunch more for my kiddos [especially since I'll have a good chunk of them for the 3rd year in a row!]