I’ve spent most of this week, doing teach schtuff preparing for this coming school year. While I was working on the classroom, the kids were in the back of the basement perfecting their Texas Hold ‘Em strategies. It was too cute to pass up the opportunity for another picture! They were using their monopoly money to bet with.

Before I took down our home school bulletin boards from last year, I thought I’d ‘pay it forward’ by sharing what we’ve done in the past.

Word Wall - Everyday, I gave them a handful of leaves and apples to write their vocabulary words on. They enjoyed standing on the desk to stick them up each morning. First I used zots, then tape. With the humidity in Georgia and a classroom with no heat and air, zots just don’t stay stuck! Leaves fell by spring. (Rather confusing for a 1st grader! j/k) The wall represents three grade levels: 1st, 3rd and 4th. 3 and 4 had to lookup definitions in the dictionary and the thesarus a few times. Within a few months, the tree was full. I had found the kids, wandering into the classroom on off days and reading the wall to eachother. They liked it alot. If I were to do it again, I’d have them use only large markers and bigger handwriting. It can be hard to see some of the words.

Detail:

This year, I’ve moved the tree to the other side of the room and it will be used for our Explorer / North American History themes. I’m debating actually hanging a swing in the doorway adjacent to the ‘tree’ wall for a “Swing Into History” theme. 3 boys tho - that might be dangerous, lol. Still - it would make a really fun place to read, don’t you think? In any case, I’m glad I spent the money last year for the tree. It’s proving to be pretty versatile and holds up really well. The pre-made leaves were a few dollars tho. When we ran out of those, we just used post-it notes shaped like leaves and apples. I was suprised that they stayed on the tree.

Giants:

Since alot of our study last year included BIG things (dinosaurs, David and Goliath, etc.), we went with a Giant theme above the chalkboards. I had a poster above it - not shown - of Jack and the Beanstalk with the words “This could be the start of something big…” It also helped to spawn discussion about the classifications of things.

The kids traced their hands and feet at the beginning of the year. This week, when I took them down, they re-traced their hands and feet on top of their previous ones. We were really shocked to discover how much more they had grown! It was fun and we’ve decided to do it each year until they are grown - if for nothing else - but Mommy’s baby books. In addition to hands and feet, we keep a marked wall with heights each year and weights.

Math Bath

This one was the first board I tried making a couple of years ago. We liked it so we have kept it. It is made mostly of scrapbooking papers. There are some borders missing because I was in the middle of taking it down to move when Slobo took a pic.

I found the idea online several years ago on a teacher’s website. The elephant is supposed to be stacked on blocks and acting as the shower for the kids in the tub.

The drawings are of the boys from a few years ago. I asked them if I should use them this year and they said they wanted to keep them. They liked the reminder of when they took baths together! The kid drawings are positioned within slits of the tub. I catch my 6 yr. old moving them around and making them talk to one another. lol. This board is now where the tree used to be. There is also a number line that goes above it with a rubber duck that slides along on a bar of soap. They don’t need the number lines anymore, but I thought the duck was too cute to pass up again this year. There are “bubbles”, made of blue laminated paper, velcroed on one side. The number line has a strip of the rougher velcro loops along it and the bubbles were used as manipulatives to position points along the line. The velcro idea might have worked on a stronger wall, but the dots would pull the number line off the wall because the velcro held on so tight. lol. My basement is just 2×4 framing, to which I stapled drapery lining. So I can only ‘attach’ things at studs. You might come up with a better idea for that.