Bulletin Boards

These bulletin boards were requirements for Dr. Patricia Clanton's Field and Observation course. Too many teachers leave college without knowing how to design and build bulletin boards for their classrooms. Therefore, this assignment was given to prepare future teachers for the responsibility. I never had thought about doing bulletin boards before I took this class. Once I began to accomplish the task of doing one, I realized how difficult a job it is. First of all, teachers have to come up with an idea for the board. Then, they have to design it. If they don't already have the materials to use for the project, they have to go buy them. Finally, they have to find time to hang everything up. There is a lot of unseen time, effort, and monety that goes in to bulletin boards.

Though I was not sure how bulletin boards could fit in with my classroom, I learned that they can be a useful tool for teaching. For instance, I could build a board to help illustrate the 1200's for "A Tale of Two Books." I could also build one to help define terms for "Dear Mr. Wilson." Several things could be done with a bulletin board. I hope to be effective in my use of them.

My collaborating teacher had only one bulletin board in her classroom. She had pictures of her students on it and did not want to take them down. Therefore, I had to make due. Here are the two boards that I designed and built.

The first bulletin board is a motivational board. It contains four motivational phrases surrounding and apple with a worm. The students helped to draw the apple and worm. They kind of liked that.

The second bulletin board is a time schedule. A time schedule is good to have to show students what time class begins and ends. That way, they know when learning begins and ends. If a teacher enforces the time written on the board, he/she will be more likely to complete the day's lesson.