7/6/13

A Room with No Bulletin Boards

I am faced with a dilemma. A major one that causes me much grief throughout the school year. Many times, I find myself staring at my walls thinking to myself, "This room looks so cluttered even though it is full of wonderful student work."

Oh my. This picture scares me.
I want my classroom to be eye-catching--a true representation of the students who work there. When I have to just staple a child's paper on the white bare walls, I feel it doesn't do that piece of work justice. It's like saying to the child, "Wow! You did a fantastic job! You worked so hard. Now I will NOT work hard in making your work stand out. I will just put it up because this spot on my wall looks a little empty."

End of the school year after everything was taken down
It's difficult to really centralize student work when I have no designated spaces for it. In a typical classroom, most people have bulletin boards to decorate which make it easy to replace old work with new. I'm really not sure how to tackle this problem. I'd really prefer not to have to spend a fortune on it, but I do want something that is year-long, meaningful, and a place where students know that their work will live. (And want to put it up there!)

What would you do in my shoes? Any advice or ideas would be wonderful.

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14 comments:

  1. You have a couple of options. 1) Create a faux bulletin board using borders. Make a square or rectangle out of the Bulletin Board borders to designate a wall space. Maybe use a large sheet of rolled paper in any color to create a backdrop other than white.

    Use random colored pieces of construction paper as a "matte" to mount their art work on. This will not only make each piece of work pop, but will add some color to your walls too!

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    1. I like the idea of the faux bulletin board! I would like to make some main locations where student work and anchor charts can be located. The matte idea is clever too! I don't like just sticking a white piece of paper up on the white wall. It makes it seem so...I don't know.

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  2. How about the hallway to display work?...then other classes can enjoy.

    pat

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    1. I do that as well! Maybe I can make that the main source of where student work goes and use classroom wall space for learning resources we create as a class. =) Thanks for the idea, Pat!

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  3. I found this lovely pin on pinterest that led to this blog link:
    Word Wall Woes Wiped Away

    She took a 4'x8' insulation board (found at home improvement stores for around $10) and covered it with an inexpensive bed sheet and attached it to her wall. This created a bulletin board for her room. I will be putting several up in my room this year. Maybe this would be a good solution for you!

    Emily
    Confessions of a 3rd Grade Teacher

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    1. That's not a bad idea! I'll have to go check out her post and see how to do that. I'm excited to see how yours turn out, too! Thanks for the tip!

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  4. I have also seen on pinterest a row of clipboards one for each child for them to clip their favorite work

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    1. How neat! I'll have to try to find that on pinterest and see how they did it! Thanks, Amanda!

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  5. I have also seen on pinterest a row of clipboards one for each child for them to clip their favorite work

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  6. You could easily create your own bulletin board by hanging background paper on the wall and stapling a border around it. This way your 'bulletin boards' are the size you want them to be!

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  7. You could always hang a piece of fabric for the background and border around it. Also, instead of stapling things to the wall, you could use decorative clothespins hanging from a piece of jute or pom pom fridge or some kind of decorative trim--kind of like a bunting, but with work displayed. It makes things sooo much easier to change out than stapling, too. Plus, you could use washi tape, glitter or paint to make your clothespins stand out.

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  8. I hot glue ribbon to the walls using dots of hot glue and then hang artwork using clothespins. I can change out the artwork very simply without damaging the walls. To make different displays, I just change out the headers above the ribbons.

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  9. Thanks for stopping by! I can only get that font to work once I save it as a PDF. It is always cut off while I am working with it, but once it is saved, it works! Looks like everyone has already given you great advice about your BB!
    Amy
    3 Teacher Chicks

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  10. I do much the same as others with creating a faux bulletin board but I use those medical files to hang work with. There cheap & re-usable and make a great portfolio at the end of the year. It's basically a piece of card stock with 2 holes punched on the top and a wire clip goes through the holes...the kind that fold over. There used frequently in medical offices. I don't know if I am being clear. Anyway, I just stack new work samples on top of the old ones so at the end of the year the file comes off the wall and they have a portfolio of all of the work for the year in that subject.

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