Folded Leaf Bulletin Board

14 Nov

 

paper leaves border

My art project for this month consisted of  folded paper leaves I found on Pinterest from this site  http://krokotak.com/ .   They are a very simple to make and even my youngest students were able to complete one  in  15 minutes. It only required colored computer paper and a glue stick.  We also used pipecleaners because I had them on hand and they were easier for making the stem.   I am not sure what language the directions are in but they are still quite  user friendly because of the clear pictures. I put them on my iPad and let the students follow them. The directions are here.

We put the leaves on the bulletin board and I was able to make more use of that tree.

paper leaf Bulletin Board

It’s Going a bit Batty Here

20 Oct

 

 

2014-10-20 08.08.34bat

It has been a very busy Fall with another school added to my caseload. I am a little slow with the bulletin board.   My students are young this year and I need to keep my projects simple.

The students always seem to enjoy paper-folding and I discovered these  easy bat folding directions at WikiHow  here.   They may not look very fancy but they did serve the function of  working on following directions.  We also talked about what they knew about  bats.  This was an easy board to put up because  I kept the tree from last month and just  added my spider.  You may recognize the spider as my pompom and pipe cleaner spider from years gone by.

Welcome Back

4 Sep

This was our first day back with students.  We start quite a bit later than most parts of the country.   Our school  seems to be in a growth spurt.  Additional kindergarten classes were added.  We have full day kindergarten now and more students are  enrolling. In the past,  we often lost students to private schools.  Parents needed childcare for the other half of the day and it was easier to have students stay in one place.

The building went through some renovations over the summer with new walls and doors  to make enclosed classrooms.  Our school was built during the time of the open classroom concept.  Through the years walls have been added but not always with doors.   This creates some interesting difficulties with noise, temperature control, and keeping  students contained in classrooms.  In the past we have actually used tape on the floor to show boundaries.  I am hoping the full day kindergarten will help alleviate some of my scheduling difficulties.

This was the Welcome Back bulletin board I made to start the year. I used rolls of brown butcher paper for the trunk of the tree.  I had a stencil for oak leaves.  I cut toilet paper rolls and glued the edges onto yellow paper to make the hive.  A teacher noticed my theme and gave me bee note paper.  We have a lot of bee themed materials at this school because our mascot is a bee.  It didn’t take long to put up. It is interesting how the tree has a different character each time.    I like to use a tree because it is easy to continue it through the school year and change it for the  seasons.

Bee lieve In Yourself

Bee lieve in Yourself, Welcome Back Stingers

Sometimes the Best Things are Free

8 May

We are counting down with 4 1/2 weeks of school left.  We even saw some sunny days which made people think that summer will make it yet.  We get a lot of rain this time of year so sun is appreciated. It is hard to keep students interested when they would  rather be outside.  I am especially low on ideas for the life skills program.  I came across this BINGO game and it was the perfect activity for this week.  The students took turns drawing the call cards and making the faces so everyone could guess which one it was on their  Bingo card.  Even the students with limited verbal abilities had a good time.  You can find them at   http://peoniesandpoppyseeds.com/  here

 

Feelings BINGO

 

May is also the month I bring out the Pear Tree for Homonyms.  It seems to look different every year.  I thought you might like to see how it is looking this year.  I am still giving out lollipops for each homonym pair a student comes up with.  After doing this several years, I am pleased to find that students that contributed when they were younger do not need prompting to come up with words now.

Pear2014

April Showers Bulletin Board

1 Apr

April is here and time to switch out the bulletin board again.  We seem to be getting our fair share of rain and the fruit trees are in full  bloom.  I know  some places are still getting snow so I don’t really have a right to complain about the rain.   When looking for this month’s bulletin board project, I saw  several variations of paper flowers on Pinterest.  I happen to have a  supply of colored computer paper that would make colorful flowers for the traditional saying “April Showers Bring May Flowers.”  I was able to adapt one of the flowers to a version that used the materials I have on hand;  paper and tape.  The flowers are simple enough that my older students in the Lifeskills program were able to complete them along with my younger general education students.  My only problem is that the students want to bring them home for their mothers so I had trouble getting them to leave them for the bulletin board.  This is what the board is looking like so far.  We made the directions and shared them on Storykit.  It is still a good exercise to have the students record the directions.  Their voices  were removed here before posting  because of our school privacy requirements.  Directions for flowers on the bulletin board.

 

April Bulletin Board