This page is to help out first year teachers who have no
idea what to put up on bare walls in their classroom...
"My school is very poor and the building is very old. My
principal told me I could paint anything on the walls. So I'm stealing from my cooperating teacher...tessellations. I have
the students draw them on large poster board (the tessellation piece must
be no larger than 2" x 2"). We will hang them all over the schools and vote on the 15 best posters. I will let those students
have one "brick" on my wall that they will paint their tessellations on.
It is AMAZING how much detail and trouble the students go to to
make it perfect. The 15 runner up tessellations
will get to have their poster put on one of my ceiling tiles. I can take
the tiles out and cover them with different colored bulletin board paper at
the beginning of the year. Then, anytime we do "math art" (i.e.,
tessellations, circle art, etc.), we can tape those to the ceiling.
Thanks again for having a great site. Hope I can call on you for ideas in
the coming year!!!!"submitted by Shauna H.
"My kids love to see their own work displayed. We have one
bulletin board called "The Wall of Fame" where they each have a
laminated piece of construction paper on which to attach their
best paper of the week. Another board has book posters, summaries
and reports. They like to peruse this one when looking for a book
to read. They have science posters they made on the wall and they
have holiday related things posted outside the room. They even
have things hanging from the ceiling. Just about everywhere the
eye can see is evidence that the room belongs to active learners."
submitted by Deb from
Hawthorne Elementary in Dallas
"As a sub I see all kinds of decor. One of the neatest
things I have seen is an Elvis Lamp. It is used as the
lighting for video viewing. I hope to find something
similiar for my room. Also I have seen a number of
rockers with afghans in reading areas. Very nice."
--submitted by Missy from Iowa
One of the best things to have on your wall is a "Rules
and Expectations" Poster. Post the rules where they can
see them, all the time... --KR
I bought books of quotes and poured through them...
I took the ones I found most profound and appropriate and
typed them up in my word processing program. I blew them
up so they could be read from a distance, and put them
on colored backgrounds. My students loved reading good
quotes, I'd find them written in their student planners all
the time! --KR
I just found, while subbing, a pretty neat full-sized
poster called "A Letter to My
Students" It's pretty profound, I thought I'd type it
up and blow up the type size and turn it into an 8 page letter
that decorates some long strip of wall... --KR
After doing a unit on geometric translation with my 7th and 8th grades, I taught them how to do tesselations. I put them all up on the walls right after I did them, but when it came time to take them down, I kept the best ones & had them laminated. They will make great wall hangings for future years. --KR
I have made posters with illustrations of every mathematical formula we're going to cover this year. ie area of a square, a triangle, a parallelogram, a trapezoid. Volume of a prism, a pyramid, a cylinder. You get the idea.--KR
Do you have any classroom decor tips you'd like to share? Please
submit them here!