Bulletin Boards

On one wall in my classroom, I have a long bulletin board that I have split into smaller boards. The first picture is of the entire board. On one end, I have used part of the Crystal Production elements of art and principles of design card. On the other end, I used the rest of them. In between, I have my No-no board, which lists the things that I don't want to see in my students artwork. The Artists in Action board is blank for right now. I plan on taking pictures of my students at work, and post them on the board.

Above the board, I have made "shape monsters/aliens". I cut out large shapes, and added eyes and mouths. Then I cut the letters of the words out and laminated them.

Above the cubbies that are attached to the original chalkboard in the room is a markerboard that is kind of silly. It is above the cubbies, and I would have to stand on a chair or step stool to reach it, so I have turned it into my rule board. It says: Out of this world artists... are kind, put their name on their paper, use inside voices, follow all directions, use supplies carefully, stay in their seat and raise their hand. Do You???" On my paper cabinet I have put my behavior board which says "Spacing out?" There are 28 pockets that correspond to the 28 seats in my classroom. Whenever a student misbehaves, I pull one of their cards. They start on green, and can move to blue, yellow, red and no card with appropriate consequences for each.

Outside of the art room, I have put up some displays. On my door, I have used black paper to cover the door, and used my cricut to cut out the words "Please excuse the mess. The children are making MASTERPIECES!" It is simple, but I like it a lot. There is a bulletin board outside the room that I have been put in charge of. While searching Pinterest, I came across a great bulletin board that I decided to recreate.

And finally, Ted (Mr. E) also gave me the words and stars from his art show last year, so I put them on another wall, which gives me 4 walls to use as display space.

New year, new room!

School has started here in Nashville, and I have been very busy in the art room, getting it ready. I'm in a new room, which was a very bland navajo white color. I painted the room two different blues (seen in an earlier post). Then I had to wait...and wait...and wait some more for the custodians to clean my room and wax the floors (it's a new room and I was a little anxious, ok!?!?) Once I got into the room, the the unpacking ensued. This room has way less storage built in, with only one little sink and cabinet in the corner, and a set of open cubbies

that someone had bolted to the original chalkboard.

These cubbies are great, but open to the room, so not the best thing for storing supplies that you don't want the children getting into. So I have used this as my classroom library area. To solve the storage issue, I have 2 large 2-door cabinets, one for paint and printmaking supplies (I have a lot of paint, I admit that I am a hoarder in this area, I unpacked 84 trays of watercolors, not all of them useful, but I hate to throw them away!), the other cabinet for paper and other supplies. Since there is only one bulletin board in my room (albeit a really long board!) I have used the doors of the cabinets as more board space. On my paper cabinet, I have placed my behavior board, and on the paint cabinet, I have attached my scissor storage. The scissor storage is magnetized tool racks found at Home Depot for $12. The scissors hang on the racks until needed, and are high enough that the kindergartners can't reach them.

I found this idea on Pinterest, with someone using knife storage bars from Ikea, but since Nashville doesn't have an Ikea, I improvised. In this classroom I have a door that goes outside, and a window. By the door, I laced my word wall, and by the window, my reading area. Between the door and the window is my long bulletin board, which I have split up into smaller boards, and will post better pictures of later.

I have used the theme of outer space this year, and if you are aware of the blog http://artwithmre.blogspot.com/, you might recognize the big mama alien hiding behind my door. Ted (Mr. E) is one of my friends, in fact, more like family, and when he found out I was going with an outer space theme, he offered me the alien and other things that he had make for his art show last year. I jumped at the offer, and Big Bertha (as I now call her) is now part of our classroom. She will have a sign that says "is your name on your paper?" around her neck, since she is setting beside the artwork storage cabinet. Continuing with my theme, the tables have been numbered with aliens, one at each corner, the numbers of which correspond with the pockets on my behavior board. On each table is a basket that has crayons, markers, pencils, erasers, and pencil sharpeners. This cuts down on time passing out supplies. On the bottom of the chairs, I have rubberbanded 2 layers of felt to cut down on the scraping of chairs on the floor. This keeps the classroom quieter, and save the wax on the floor longer.

My next post will be better pictures of my bulletin boards and hallway displays.

I'm totally cheating!!!!

So, I have a confession to make... I love to create bulletin boards, but I hate cutting out letters for my boards, and refuse to spend money to buy punch out letters that I may use once. My school has an Ellison machine which punches out letters, but it is in another part of the building, and is sometimes a pain to get to, and we only have 2 font options to choose from, and they are each 4 inches big. Once in a while I can talk my friend Ted into cutting out letters for me, but not all of the time. So what did I do? I used some fundraiser money to buy a Cricut machine on clearance at Walmart. What is a Cricut machine? It is a handy machine that was created for scrapbooking.

With the purchase of a variety of cartridges you can cut out thousands of shapes and letters. Now the cartridges can be pretty expensive, but if you look for clearance sales or on ebay, you can get them pretty cheap.

I use the Cricut for bulletin boards and other signs that are needed around school. I can change the size of whatever I am cutting out from 1/4 of an inch to 5 1/2 inches. I have the smallest Cricut, but with the largest one, you can make pieces up to 23 1/2 inches. Here are some of the things I have created with the Cricut for the art show and bulletin board outside of my room. I used the snowflakes to make the border for the bulleting board.

More bulletin boards and other displays...

I promised more pictures of my bulletin boards, and here they are. I have 2 large marker boards in my room, and one of them is not in a convenient location, so I have turned it into a "bulletin" board by covering it with fabric. I have split it into 2 sections, one of which is my no-no board and the other side I have designated as the elements of art and principles of design board. The way that I explain the elements and principles to my students is by equating the elements to ingredients, and the principles as the recipe to turn those ingredients into great art.

The no-no board is where I post the "easy" things that I do not want my children to do in their artwork. I want them to be challenged, and not take the easy way out, but to really observe things around them. The specific things listed on my board are as follows:

• The sun does not smile
• Mountains are not triangles
• No floating objects
• No word bubbles
• Clouds are not blue
• No V or M birds
• Sky not touching ground
• No lollipop trees
• No stick people

These are my classroom rules:

And thanks to my friend Ted, here are my "color bugs":

Bulletin Board Time!

It's back to school time, and I have been very busy in the art room. This year, I decided to change my class theme to a garden and bug theme, so the following two boards were born. The first board is my behavior board. Each pocket corresponds with a seat in my classroom. In the pockets are card that can be pulled based on the behavior or each individual student. It is located next to the door, so as each classroom teacher comes to pick up their class, they can easily see if any students have misbehaved.

The second board is located outside my classroom door. I decided to add quotes about art, in hopes that it would give classes something to discuss and think about while waiting in the hallway.

I am currently working on two more boards, one of which is a No-No board and the other is about the elements of art and principles of design. I will post pictures when finished.

Back to school!

Well, it's that time of year again, and school has started back up. I decided to keep the theme of jungle for my classroom, but I have included more lizards this year, as well as the monkeys from last year. Here are a few of my bulletin boards. The first one is my behavior board. I have assigned a number to each of the seats, and have a corresponding pocket on the board with four pieces of colored construction paper in the pockets. As a child chooses to misbehave, their "cards" are pulled, and there are consequences given. This board is right by the door, so as the classroom teachers arrive to pick up their students, they can easily see if a child misbehaved.

The next board is the one outside of my classroom. We have new teachers this year, and with two art teachers (one outside in a portable) I wanted to make sure that they could find my room.

I have quite a few bulletin boards in my classroom, but they are not in the most convenient areas of the room. One of the boards has to be covered up by the shelf that I use to hold the children's artwork, so I decided to "split" up the remaining board.

Now let's talk storage. I mentioned the shelf that I use for storing my students artwork. Storage is a huge issue for art teachers, and unless you are in a room designed for art, you need to get very creative. I was very lucky to have a kindergarten teacher who decided that she didn't need this piece of furniture anymore. I offered to give it a home. I have little labels with the teacher's names on them stapled to the sides of the shelves. The artwork can be stored flat (unless, as you can see, I let one of the little ones put the artwork in instead of me doing it)

I also have two little wooden shelves that hold plastic bins along one of my wall. I have not finished putting all of the art supplies out yet, but I like using these bins because then I can grab the whole bin to pass out supplies.

I also have a wooden shelf with the glue on it, and a set of drawers with things like brushes, beads, scissors, etc.The drawers are nice because they slide all the way out for distribution.