Bulletin Board Display Ideas

 Every teacher is required to have a bulletin board display (Standard Based Bulletin Boards) for their classroom, where the display is changed every six weeks.  Of course, there is more to it than just changing.  They have to put the TEKS covered, feedback on student work, highlight work that was above and beyond, etc etc etc...It takes a LOT of work and time.  And the library?  Nope...didn't get a bulletin board. So I resorted to using the windows of the library, but after awhile, it looked...trashy...just because I have a LOT of windows (think fishbowl).  The displays blocked the view and would curl if not taped correctly, and don't even get me started on Scotch tape and the remnants left behind.

Then, lo and behold!  A teacher had an extra bulletin board and asked if I would adopt it!  The clouds parted, the room filled with light and a choir of church boys sang a song of praise!  My mind started whirling about what kind of displays I would create, and best of all (one of those catch-22 things) I didn't have any guidelines but creativity on my side.  So off I went!  First place I looked was the listserv, where I found people who had collaboratively worked on booklists with similar themes (Thank you thank you thank you for sharing!!!).  Then it was onto Pinterest to see what else was out there (wow...AMAZED at the creativity!).  And have you ever heard of dumpster diving?  Well, I kind of did that too.  I'd see something I thought would be a great display and took it out of the trash and into the workroom.  Nothing like cardboard for 3-D effects!!

So then it was time to think about what kind of boards I'd like to do.  The ones starred are ones I took queues from through collaborative posts online.  Then I thought I better start thinking of my own themes (so use, borrow, share, post any of these ideas - it's what librarians do, right?)

*August-September:  Students Recommend:  hand out colorful shapes of post-its and ask students to write their favorite book of all time and their name.  Put these hodge-podge on the bulletin board (I had to use an outside window for this one and it looks better in person than in picture form)

*October:  Off With Their Heads!  Their Heads Are Off!:  a split bulletin board of books of bodies with no heads and those with heads and no bodies.  For Halloween, of course!

November:  Hardcopies to E-books:  another split bulletin board display of books in hardcopy format, and the other on e-book format using dumpster diving treasure! (got a poster from vendors and cut out the little book covers; pasted them on the front of the Mac cutout to look like apps). 

December:  Flurry of Series:  series books to get you through the Christmas break.  I'm even thinking of putting the books on snowflake cutouts

January: New Year, New Books: Display the newest titles in the library as well as a list of up and coming titles for the year



Do I even need to ask what I'm doing to February?  Again, dumpster diving for cardboard to glue streamer paper onto heart shapes

March: March Madness: It's all about basketball titles and...I'm struggling with this month.  You know why?  Here's what's commemorated for this month (from Wikipedia)
Irish-American Heritage Month
National Celery Month
National Colo-rectal Cancer Awareness Month
National Essential Tremor Awareness Month
National Nutrition Month
National Professional Social Work Month
National Women's History Month  ( I could definitely work with this topic!)
National kidney month

April: Eggstravaganza!  Only books about pregnancy and babies...JUST KIDDING!  Taking Time for Tayshas: Put up our state's recommended YA list, including annotations (Public School Library Month!)

May:  May I Recommend?:  This time I'll put up not only great YA reads I recommend, but also put out titles and covers of recommended reading for the summer.

So there they are in all of their glory, accentuated with "unique finds."  If you have any bulletin board ideas you'd like to share, please leave a comment :)