Hi all,
I had a tremendous and creative number or responses to my request on how
to put together a bulletin board that appeals to a wide range of ages. I
am posting the ideas below to share with anyone else out there who feels
overwhelmed or who needs a jolt of creativity. I decided not to include
names of respondents as some of us are a little shy, but I wish to thank
all of you who took the time to share your ideas!
Thanks again.
Laura Brooks, MLS
Library Media Specialist
St. Gregory the Great Catholic School
Plantation, FL
laubrooks@dca.net
I don't think you need to appeal to all grade levels at the same time.
I am in a k-8 school also. I do have more than one bb, but even so I
think I would just do what comes to me. Last year I did one called "You
otter be reading" I found somewhere the outline of an otter and had the
kids fill in the title of their favorite book. All the grades
participated. One time I put up a pre-made research board for the kids
doing research. If you try to appeal to everyone at the same time,
you'll get very frustrated. I do think that reading motivation boards
would be your best bet if you want to reach the widest audience.
How about?
"School Name" Loves to Read
With photos of the administration and teachers reading their favorite
books? As the weeks go on you could change it to add some kid photos,
too.
Be creative. I've used painted walls, windows, brick walls for
posters/banners/display areas. We've stapled up colored paper on painted
walls, placed borders on it, and used it as a bulletin board. I had one
HUGE bulletin board that I broke up into 2 for 2 different topics. One
was an AR spotlight area, the other with a changeable monthly board.
Some themes: Entering the Reading Zone.
Get on the right track, read (can use a train or race car theme)
Be outstanding in your field...read (done with several brown cows and
one black and white)
Zoom into a good book (skateboarder...Carlos/Delose (sp?) has some
wonderful clip-art books
Be a smart cookie. Read (done with gingerbread men punched with die-cuts
and decorated with bow-tie or ribbon and beans for buttons)
Color your world with books. (done with Easter eggs/ducks/chicks)
Chill with a good book (penguins, polar bears, etc.)
Cross your palm with a good book
(Palm trees and coconuts-have kids write a book they suggest on a
coconut) or
Sail into a good book...ship theme
I made one with the upside-down umbrella and kids on a big blue paper
wave. Title: Catch the wave.....Read
March was leprechauns, a rainbow and a pot of gold books , with the
title: Reading, the real treasure
Hop into a good book....frogs and lily pads
We did do a big (off-the-bulletin-board tree trunk, with the kids adding
leaves of books they liked. The leaves twined off the board and around
the library. You could use ivy leaves and see how far they went. Kids
could fill one out for every book they read. "Read around the school" or
world.
Generic boards will appeal to all. Whatever creative mood you are in
that month go for it! I bought a book of bulletin boards at ALA that I
will have volunteers work on. I will worry about other stuff.
I think a nice possibility for limited space might be some of the "READ"
posters with the famous people on them. Then pick some that appeal to
all the ages. Depending on your space, you can fit maybe three of these
in and then add some book covers near the poster that go with the age
group.
http://alastore.ala.org/ Here's the web site for the posters.
What about highlighting one grade or division per month. I'm at a JK-8
school and have a ten month school year (Sept. - June). Sept. is a
welcome back I do myself. JK & SK share October, grade 1 has November.
Sometimes I use their own work, sometimes its a reading theme. When
they know their turn is coming it amazing the help and suggestions you
will get.
How about starting the year with something aimed at all users, something
general, something about loving books or the library? One year I made a
Book Cheerleading Squad that was cute. I made a generic kid shaped
stencil (8" tall, arms and legs a bit spread) and cut out a bunch in
different skin-toned colors. I glued on different hair, gave simple
features, and simple clothes cut out of paper. I gave some of them
"books" (pictures of book covers cut out of catalogs). Some I gave
banners or flags with slogans like Hurray for Reading. By positioning
them - in lines, some holding hands, some standing in pyramids, a couple
whose arms I repositioned and had upside down doing handsprings - they
look like cheerleaders.
Whatever you do, you might consider saving the pieces when you take it
down for another year.
I have two boards, but similar situation. I use them for different
grade levels and rotate things so that sometimes it's for younger kids,
sometimes older. They don't seem to notice.
What I have done in the past: is put up the words:
Sensational Work and then filled it with the best of all grades...but
you have to wait for some work to get
done....Otherwise I put up posters about books, rules about books and
anything that goes together about books in general....On a separate
board I did do photos of anyone who joined the Birthday Club...so others
would ..to make $$ for the library....Other than that I went to
bookstores and got their big posters of specific characters and hung
those-they take up much space...but I agree it is hard...
I would use a unifying theme for the year. Since the Scooby Doo craze
is on, I would use the theme of "Have a Scooby Dooby, Dewey Year!!". In
this theme I would divide the year up and every month have a different
Dewey area. So, August would be 000-100. I would decorate the board
with book jackets that would be in the 000-100 area on each of the grade
levels. This way you will hit all the grade levels and the board would
be unified. The background will be decorations that are consistent with
the Dewey area of the month.
I'm in a PS-8 school with 1 bb - outside in the hall. I don't worry too
much about every board having broad
appeal. If it's eye-catching people will get used to seeing it and will
look closer. Just try to alternate.
Use across the ages hot topics: sports, authors, display of student
work. Always popular are pictures of teachers with their favorite books
and authors.
I can suggest two alternatives for your large bulletin board--I've used
both at different times.
1) Combine levels. I often use one theme (ex: for the beginning of
school "Dive Right Into Good Reading" with cutouts of shells, fish,
etc.) Then, I display book jackets relating to that theme from various
levels. One nice bonus is that kids often are drawn to a book they would
ordinarily overlook as being "too easy" or "too hard."
2) Divide the board and do two different displays. This can be done
easily and cheaply with bulletin board borders. Simply "frame" half the
board in one border and the other half in a contrasting border. This is
also an easy way to wall off a section of bulletin board for displaying
the usual notices, fire/storm drill information/lunch menu/etc. that
schools tend to want posted in every room.
I had success with an author of the month bulletin board. I often chose
authors who had written at various grade levels, or old favorites;
Phyllis R. Naylor, Stephen Kellogg, Dr. Seuss (for March, Read across
America day), Chris Van Allsburg.. Everything has to be big, of course,
so it can be seen from the other side of the desk.
BB's can be a real time-consumer! I would think in your situation, very
general ideas would be best. For example, large colorful designs with a
catchy phrase to encourage reading. If your state has a contest/reading
program that you participate in, you could promote those books. You
could promote a different author each month, one for the younger
students and one for the older students. You could have the older
students help you create ideas and designs for the board occasionally
too. Is there an art teacher, you could become buddies with and display
student work? Enlarged digital photos of people caught reading around
the school would be fun.
I was inspired by a theme I saw in a catalog; It was a monkey hanging
from a tree in a jungle with a book in his hands. The saying was, "Hang
Out With Books!" Well, as far as the monkey goes, I
just tore out different shapes of his anatomy from brown construction
paper.... put the monkey hanging from a cut-out paper wooden branch by
his tail (I drew and cut out his tail.....didn't paper-tear his tail).
I also cut out a bright red book shape and scanned a bright colorful
cover of a Curious George book and glued it to the front cover. I then
attached various cut-out green tropical looking leaves around the edge
of the bulletin board. I did a lot of 3-D stuff by lightly bending the
leaves and stapling them......also did that with his book. I also let
the leaves hang over the border of the bulletin board. I got a lot of
compliments on that board. =o) I think this could appeal to K through
8th. The K's love the monkey and try to read the saying.......and the
upper kids think the saying and picture is "cool" too. You would be
surprised how much the older students enjoy the silly and wonderful!
For Christmas, my librarian found this idea in a Librarian's magazine.
You know the old C.D.'s you don't use anymore that are beyond using?
Well, you can tack them to a bulletin board, shiny side out of course,
in the shape of a Christmas tree. I just used silver tacks in the
middle hole for them to
hang on. I used silver tissue stapled in 3-D arrangement at the base of
the tree to represent snow. Then I got some red, shiny paper that is
used as filler for present bags (like the tissue type stuff?) and
stapled it all under the tree shape like a Christmas tree skirt.....kind
of 3-D-like again. Then I got some Mardi-Gras type beads (red, green,
gold, silver) and tacked them using short straight pins like garland on
the Christmas tree shape. Also, found some sparkly shredded icicles and
stuck that behind the
tacks that were holding up the c.d.'s. We have some little miniature
cards that looks like books. (They came with some book character
puppets that we have bought.) We tacked them around under the tree like
presents. We also had some kind of cutesy "library...Christmasy" saying
that we put up beside
the tree.....
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