It’s a proven fact that we teachers LOVE bulletin boards. It’s also a proven fact that we hate taking down and redoing bulletin boards a zillion times over and over again. Or maybe it’s just me..? Either way…today, I’m sharing with you some bulletin board ideas on boards that you can keep up all year long. That’s right, people… all the fun of putting up bulletin boards and none of the work having to take them down and redoing them (until the next year…if you decide!)
1. Student Focused Information
Ok, so with this bulletin board type, you work to display information about your class, but it can stay up all year!
I love this donut themed birthday board. It’s a whimsy way to share student birthdays AND is something that can stay up all year. WIN! WIN! This bulletin board also helps you remember all those student birthdays. Not that super-busy-you would ever forget one of the 26 birthdays in your classroom.
Some other student information bulletin board ideas:
- Student pictures (love this kinder one!)
- “All About Me” board displaying writings and self-portraits (like this!)
- “Growing our Goals” board (like number 3 in this post!)
- Student jobs bulletin board ( I love this easy one!)
2. Interactive Goal Keeping Boards
Ok… another idea for a bulletin board that you don’t have to update is a goal tracking board for your students. I know what you are thinking…
Wait… won’t I still have to mess with this board to update the progress of my students?
And the answer is yes. But… let your students do it. (Even kindergarteners can update!)
Here’s an example of a bulletin board that I had in my 2nd-grade classroom. We used it to track our Reading Counts points. Each time a student made it to the next number goal, they got to write their name on the number. Simple and easy (and no work for this Applicious Teacher!)
Other examples of bulletin boards that track progress
- Track Bucket-filling (if you follow this program)
- Track your students’ minutes on I-Ready (or any mandated program)
- Class goals (We used to collect fuzzies when we would get a compliment as a class, then we would earn a special reward after 40 fuzzies- but a bulletin board to track those compliments would have totally worked too!)
- Track your students’ math fact accomplishments! (Love this idea from Amy Lemons and Hope King!) \
Don’t be afraid to be creative on this one! Students will be excited to see how well they are doing and you’ll be able to see who might still need support and who’s ready for a challenge (without having to comb through a bunch of data!)
Check out these bulletin board hacks that will save your sanity!
3. Back-to-School Bulletin Board that Lasts All Year Long
Oh, I LOVE me a good back to school board. You know what kind I’m talking about. The kind where the board follows a theme or a color scheme for your room and you add your student names around the board to “welcome” them to your classroom.
Grab this fun bus themed back to school board here!
You guys, I’m sure this bulletin board hack has been around since the dawn of teaching. But, it’s been around for so dang long because it works. Having your students’ names displayed around the room helps create ownership of the classroom and the work that is done in it! Why not allow that welcome board to stay up as a reminder that we are all in this classroom together? And save you from creating another board this year?
4. Learning Objectives Board
Ok, this next one might be mandated by your school to have, but it really does make a great board to keep up all year. For me, learning objective boards have changed over the years.
When I taught kindergarten, (Yikes! I know!) I used the board space right by our “carpet area” to hang anchor charts, learning posters, samples, and even our learning objectives. It was a great place off the whiteboard that students could reference. Yes, you’ll have to update the content that’s on this type of board with your current learning objectives, but at least it’s only a few things, not the entire board.
Here’s an example of the learning objective board I had in my 2nd-grade classroom. I used white sheets of paper tucked into page protectors that were push-pinned into the board. Each time I needed to update our learning objectives, I’d just wipe away the text and update it as needed. Everything else just stayed the same! (Grab this idea here!)
5. Make it Interactive
One of my favorite ways to keep a board up all year is to make it actually work for you and interactive bulletin boards do just that!
My mini classroom STEM Lab board is an example. I set this space right over a table that we had in our classroom that was also by a bulletin board. I added letters, stem manipulatives to the table, and task cards on rings that were stored on pushpins right on the bulletin board. (You can read more about that space here!) Now, I have a bulletin board that looks good, can stay up all year, and is actually useful for my students.
Other interactive board ideas:
- Sight word walls
- A class game board like Boggle, Scramble, or Monopoly
- Question parking lot- students have questions, have sticky notes nearby and they can stick their questions up on the board.
- Would you rather- pose a would you rather question, then have students move their names to the answers. Be sure to update regularly!
- Word of the Day/Week board- post a word of the week, then as the week goes on students work to do different things with the word. (Definition, sentence, picture)
So those a just a few suggestions of bulletin boards that are simple to make and can stay up all year. What are some of your favorite bulletin board that can stand the test of time? Comment below with your favorites!
More Bulletin Board Ideas
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[…] Serious here, folks! Listen to me – don’t cut your borders! If you like to change borders more than once a year, or you plan to use those border pieces for more than one board, don’t trim your pieces! Just leave them at their 3-foot length, and layer as needed. It can be a little trickier with scalloped borders, but I line up the edges as much as I can, then fold or tuck the excess down. This allows you to keep your pieces intact and able to be used later for different boards without having to piece together a whole bunch of smaller pieces (which I can’t stand, btw- the patterns NEVER match up properly! Virgo problems…). Are bulletin boards driving you crazy? Check out these 5 suggestions for bulletin boards you can kee… […]