I Love a Great Theme!

Each year, for the last eleven years, we have had a different all-school theme. We coordinate hallway displays, bulletin board titles, art shows and music programs into the theme.

The beginning of the year is a favorite time for me because I love seeing how all the classroom teachers interpret the theme. This year, our theme is "The Sky's the Limit."  We've got astronauts, kites, airplanes, rockets, hot air balloons and superheros! Needless to say, we have a tremendously creative staff!

I have a few really large bulletin boards to tie into the theme each fall. Here's what I came up with this time around...

The Sky is the Limit

This black bulletin board is right outside the Art Room. I love using the black roll paper because no matter what I put on it, it really pops! The students in our Specially Designed Art class used shaving cream and paint to marbelize the papers we used for the stars. The theme is written in AlphaClouds font from dafont.com. And the image of Starry Night was enlarged and rasterized (an idea I totally stole from http://artfulartsyamy.blogspot.com/2011/08/rasterizing-images-to-make-giant-and.html)

Shine On

This next bulletin board is in the hallway as well. For this one, the title just uses nice big letters in a fun font with some cool effects. Again, our SDArt kiddos created the textured papers for the sun rays. We used tissue papers and water to create the softer textures and tempera paint and rulers for the brighter rays.

Art Is Out of This World

And this idea came straight from Pinterest! I saw a few versions of it and just had to make it for my Art Room! This is the board everyone sees from the hallway as they walk past my room.

I started with seamless background paper that had a starry night feel to it. I added paper lanterns for planets (which I think are my favorite part). My kiddos and I drew the rocket ship, added tissue paper for flames (and to hide the plug for the rope lights), and used another cute space-themed font for the headline.

And because I love to show off organizational systems that work for me, let me tell you about the red buckets! Under the bulletin board are two 6' folding tables, marked out with every grade level  in colored tape - RoyGBiv of course. In each red bucket, there are examples, supplies and handouts for each grade's current project. In front of each bucket, there is enough room to store extra papers, visuals, rubrics or other items. I am so lucky to have enough room to spread out all those supplies across twelve feet of space!

I can't wait to see how our school's theme will inspire our spring Art Show. I've got some really great ideas brewing around in my brain already!

Do you mix up your bulletin boards every year? 

What inspires a really great bulletin board?