Back to school bulletin board ideas

One of my favorite summer activities is thinking of my back to school bulletin board! I'm not one of those teachers that makes it easy on herself and uses the same one every year. I wish that I could do that and be satisfied, but I love creating them too much! I've been thinking about it for a while now and I finally have my idea. After my new blog design I'm a little inspired with ice cream so my bulletin board is going to be:

"Here's the Scoop on Mrs. Farmer's Sweet First Graders!"

After a little searching online I found this amazing one and will use it for inspiration when creating mine.



I love the awning and how she did the words "scoop" and "sweet"! She also has a great template for the ice cream cones...all for free! Just click on the picture to go to her website.

I plan on doing something a little more with the ice cream cones. My title will be "Here's the Scoop..." so each day the kids will add a new scoop to their ice cream cone with information about themselves. Some ideas I'm kicking around are...family members, hobbies, pets, favorite subject, something they did on summer break, and color in their favorite ice cream flavor. Since the first day of school is on a Monday, I will probably have one for each day of the week. And I'm pretty sure that the last one will be their favorite flavor, topped to look something like this:


The chocolate syrup is actually brown tempera paint in a condiment squeeze bottle. Love the cotton balls and sprinkles...oh wait, and the cherry on top!!!

As their gift for meet the teacher, I found a few things that I just love:
      
S'mores treats and ice cream bubbles...maybe with a tag that says, This year will be so sweet! I'll share when I make them. Of course this will go along with magic confetti!

If you are interested in an ice cream back to school bulletin, I thought of some other good titles:
"Here's the scoop...1st grade is a real treat"
"Ms. _____'s first graders are sweet!"
"1st grade is scoops of fun"
"Scooping up a great year"
"Here's the scoop...we're a great class"

And here are the bulletin boards that I have done over the past few years...this of course was before I was a blogger so unfortunately I was not good about taking pictures back then.

2010: "Here We Grow Again" I put pictures of the kids faces inside of flowers!
2011: "Let's Set Sail for 1st Grade"...Mrs. Jump inspired pirate ship...it was so cute! I had little pirate bears on a huge pirate ship.
2012: "Let's Kick Off to a Great Year"...football inspired {since this was last year, I did have a picture}. Read more about this one here.

I would love to hear what you are thinking about for your back to school bulletin board. Leave me a comment here or on my facebook page! 

Back to School Classroom Pictures

Still surviving my first week of school. Whoever thought that beginning the first day of school on a Monday was a good idea, surely has never taught elementary! Whew!!! And these babies are EXHAUSTED! I swear by 10:00 most of them are D.O.N.E.!! But thats because we are big first graders and we are working so hard. I have lots to share about our first week coming soon. But first I want to share some pictures that I have been too busy to post!

 

First is my back to school bulletin board.

 

I wish I could have gotten a straight shot of it but our halls are too narrow! Here it is from the other angle.

 

My classroom is not sports themed, I just thought that this was a cute idea. I think my husband inspired me, he's been counting down football season ever since the summer. Me? I could care less! :)

 

I made the cute little football players and cheerleaders by purchasing a few sets from Scrappin Doodles. Then I projected the images and traced them out. You probably can't see it from the pictures but the little footballs have the students names on them. We are working on a writing piece about how we can be a team player this year to go up with their footballs. I love it. Back to school bulletin boards are probably my most favorite part of coming back to school. I love to walk the halls and see what everyone else comes up with and I gotta tell ya, my school has some pretty cute stuff!

 

Next are pictures of my classroom. Keep in mind that it is pretty bare bones. Lots of student work and decorations will be coming soon. But stalking seeing other classrooms is one of my favorite things to look at in blog land.

 

 

 

I love my writing area. On the back of the shelves, facing the cubbies are the students book boxes. I have my letterland cards on the writing table. Usually these are on the floor or sitting on the board but it was meet the teacher night so I was trying to get it out of the way.

 

Look at all of this storage!!! The two tables in the back are my assistant and my small group tables. We have small groups during daily five, math, and phonics.  

 

 

This is our reading area.The picture turned out kind of dark. I'm working on some better/bigger pillows.

 

It's a work in progress but it's my second home!

 

I'll have more on my first week of school soon!