12/11/2013
I recently had a couple of my graduate assistants refresh the bulletin board in the ITC. We try to do this at least monthly to give visitors to the ITC ideas for their classrooms. I always stress to our pre-service teachers that bulletin boards are an effective communication tool and you should not limit bulletin board designs to two dimensions. Since it is winter time we had the idea of making a Snowman scene with 3D snowflakes hanging from the ceiling to make it look like it was snowing.
Learning is an attitude and having a pleasant learning environment is an important component for making students feel welcome in their learning space. Bulletin Boards provide information but they also can help set the atmosphere for learning. How welcoming is your classroom?
Here is their accounting of how they did it.
Katy and I work here in the ITC and one of our tasks is to create bulletin boards for others to learn from. This month we wanted to do a Holiday board because we are entering winter break. First, we searched ideas through Pinterest. I don’t know if many of you have an account, and I am sure you do not need one to look through photos. However, Pinterest is a great source for educational ideas. Once we narrowed our search down to the picture we wanted, we got to work.
The ITC has a lot of great supplies to help create the perfect bulletin board from die-cutters, to backdrop paper, markers and construction paper. We measured out our bulletin board and got the appropriate amount of backdrop paper to get started. Once you have that positioned the rest is a breeze. Katy worked with the die-cutters in cutting out many snowflakes.
If you have not already been in to the ITC, come in and take a quick look around. The die-cutters are a great source for cutting out letters and different shapes and pictures. Once the snowflakes were cut out, Katy took two at a time, folded them at 90* and taped two together to form a 3-D illusion of a snowflake. While she was working hard on that, I cut off some white paper and began working on the snowman. I personally think it looks best whenever it is freehand because it makes it look more authentic.
For this particular bulletin board, we wanted the snowman to look like he was sticking out off the bulletin board, having a little extra paper on the sides to make that possible helps. Katy took another yard of white paper and began working on the “snow slopes” that would be in the background of the bulletin board. Once again, I think it is best if you try to freehand this. Just cut out a flowing landscape, it doesn’t have to be perfect!
Once you have the snowflakes, snow slope, and snowman cut out you can begin putting it together using a layered approach. First we stapled up the snow slopes in the background. Once that was done, Katy got to work stapling the snowflakes on the backdrop like they were falling. Next, we began putting the snowman up. We wanted to have him look like he was a 3-D figure. We stapled the bottom first and somewhat up the sides to leave some room in the middle. Once that was done I took the left over paper that we used and crumpled it up into balls of paper. We took that and stuffed it in the snowman’s belly to make him “pop” out. Katy picked out a green boarder to go around the outside of our bulletin board to hide any of the messy side parts and to make it look like a wintery scene. We took left over construction paper and began making the buttons that go down the snowman’s outfit, and the coal shapes for the eyes, and mouth. Katy made a nose out of left over construction paper. If you try this yourself, maybe making the nose look like it is sticking out, to make it 3-D would be a nice effect.
Katy got busy working on the snowman’s top hat; once again, we freehanded all of this to make it look fun and artsy. After that, Katy created from left over construction paper the berries on the hat and the leaf. I used the letter die-cutters to spell out “Happy Holidays From The ITC” as a festive touch.
The die-cutters in the ITC are a lot of fun to work with. They’re simple and make any project easier and more enjoyable. We took brown construction paper to make the arms of the snowman by cutting it in half, width-wise. Then we took each half and twisted it to give it a “stick” look and stuck them into the sides of the snowman.
Katy found little light bulb shapes die-cutters and made a bunch in assorted colors to put along the outside of the bulletin board. It added some flare in making it look more festive! Then we took a permanent marker and traced the light bulbs as if they were on a string of lights. Once all of that was put together, I took fishing line and a hole-punch and went to work on the left over 3-D snowflakes we had. I punched a single hole in the tops of the snowflakes, then I snaked through some fishing line just enough on each to make them look like they were falling at different lengths. Tie the end of the fishing line to a paper clip and then attach to the ceiling tile tracks above to hang the snowflakes.
As a final touch we cut out a small pocket shaped piece of paper and taped it to the Snowman’s chest that served as a pocket to hold a MP3 Player that we cutout and colored with a highlighter. We used real headphones and made it look like they were connected to the MP3 Player in his pocket.
If you look closely the Snowman is listening to our TechTalk4Teachers podcast!
If you would like to listen to the latest episode of TechTalk4Teachers please visit:
Building a bulletin board can be overwhelming at first, but if you add just a little creativity it can turn out to be a lot of fun!
Thank you for reading our blog,
Amy and Katy
Graduate Assistants in the ITC
December 2013
Keep on Learning!
Dr. Grissom
@tomgrissom
