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My friend just asked me how I would decorate a sixth grade classroom...I thought I'd ask for ideas here on City-data....I am not in education, so I have no idea. I just thought of maps, the five w's, college themes, math symbols etc.
Any suggestions for classroom decor? They've budgeted $200 per teacher, per classroom.
There are a ton of free online resources just for the looking.
Last year I sent away for a set of posters called Life of the Forest. These also came with study guides.
This page: International Paper - Life of the Forest
allows you to download the posters.
There may be a way to get the actual posters, but I couldn't find it with a simple search.
My friend just asked me how I would decorate a sixth grade classroom...I thought I'd ask for ideas here on City-data....I am not in education, so I have no idea. I just thought of maps, the five w's, college themes, math symbols etc.
Any suggestions for classroom decor? They've budgeted $200 per teacher, per classroom.
Many best practices in education suggest that student-work should be the main focus of a classroom, not those hackneyed posters that teachers used to put up. I would suggest using the money for some basic background decor - colorful bulletin board paper, some seasonal items to add as needed, and with that much money, for sure some kind of comfortable seating area for a center or reading nook. Skip the cheesy posters. Maps and globes should already be there, but if not then of course a map is useful. Then when the school year starts, use student work for decor. Displays can include things like posters you make together with the class stating your agreed on "classroom rules," lists made together representing various learning, like reading comprehension strategies or whatever you are working on. Those should change as the year goes on. Also, for fun in the first week of class, a great activity is to hang poster-board in prominent places in the room and allow the students to paint it with artwork, inspirational sayings, their names, etc. One year, for example, I had bookshelves with the backs exposed, and covered them with large pieces of posterboard. Then I let the kids paint the whole backs of the shelves like a mural in the first week of class. Many studies show that kids have a better sense of ownership when they have a say in the decor of the room, and anyway it's fun and makes a great ice-breaker.
All decor should be functional, IMO. Visuals the students can actually use for learning. Definitely leave place for displays that are the product of student collaboration, it gives them ownership.
My friend just asked me how I would decorate a sixth grade classroom...I thought I'd ask for ideas here on City-data....I am not in education, so I have no idea. I just thought of maps, the five w's, college themes, math symbols etc.
Any suggestions for classroom decor? They've budgeted $200 per teacher, per classroom.
What subject does she teach? Or is this an elementary classroom?
Many best practices in education suggest that student-work should be the main focus of a classroom, not those hackneyed posters that teachers used to put up. I would suggest using the money for some basic background decor - colorful bulletin board paper, some seasonal items to add as needed, and with that much money, for sure some kind of comfortable seating area for a center or reading nook. Skip the cheesy posters. Maps and globes should already be there, but if not then of course a map is useful. Then when the school year starts, use student work for decor. Displays can include things like posters you make together with the class stating your agreed on "classroom rules," lists made together representing various learning, like reading comprehension strategies or whatever you are working on. Those should change as the year goes on. Also, for fun in the first week of class, a great activity is to hang poster-board in prominent places in the room and allow the students to paint it with artwork, inspirational sayings, their names, etc. One year, for example, I had bookshelves with the backs exposed, and covered them with large pieces of posterboard. Then I let the kids paint the whole backs of the shelves like a mural in the first week of class. Many studies show that kids have a better sense of ownership when they have a say in the decor of the room, and anyway it's fun and makes a great ice-breaker.
I agree with everything you said, with the exception of not using posters. Ok, I do agree with the no cheesy poster rule.
The posters I linked to are awesome, and they come with study guides.
ALL of the ideas are great....I love the taking ownership suggestion. My son loves when I involve him in everything - almost everything.
He will be teaching 6th grade at a new charter school. He is the only male and so he needs as much decorating advice as he can get! JK!
I am going to suggest the map and doing the bookshelves for sure...thank you all very much.
ALL of the ideas are great....I love the taking ownership suggestion. My son loves when I involve him in everything - almost everything.
He will be teaching 6th grade at a new charter school. He is the only male and so he needs as much decorating advice as he can get! JK!
I am going to suggest the map and doing the bookshelves for sure...thank you all very much.
I'm glad that he is "stepping up" to create a positive learning environment for his students.
It always irked me when you could clearly identify which elementary classroom were taught by males, because of the totally bare walls or absolute minimum decoration (a few maps & posters that stayed up the entire year) and the female teachers were told that they needed to change their room & hallway decorations to fit every holiday or season. Of course, at that time 90% of the principals were male, usually former phy.ed teachers/coaches, and felt that "School Masters" (ie.male teachers) were above petty school rules (at least in the districts where I was a teacher).. Now 20 years later it is a little harder to identify the classrooms of male teachers but at least there isn't the clear double standard of room decoration as in the past.
I'm glad that he is "stepping up" to create a positive learning environment for his students.
It always irked me when you could clearly identify which elementary classroom were taught by males, because of the totally bare walls or absolute minimum decoration (a few maps & posters that stayed up the entire year) and the female teachers were told that they needed to change their room & hallway decorations to fit every holiday or season.
I decorated "male-style." Really, I had better things to do. A couple times (in many years) kids mentioned it, but they didn't really care. One girl thanked me for not having so many distracting things around - she found that interesting walls made it difficult to focus.
A few suggestions for the teacher who doesn't want to spend a lot of time decorating walls:
-If you have bulletin boards to cover, use fabric rather than butcher paper. It is easier to put up, will stay nice longer, and can be reused from year-to-year. If you want some variety, just change the borders.
-If it's a self-contained classroom, give each student his or her own space. You can use a long wall or bulletin board divided into rectangles with string (or something prettier, if you want). Give each kid a section. I did this with fourth graders, and I put a small school photo of the child in the space. The rest was up to them - they chose something they were proud of and I put it up. If they wanted it changed, that was fine. If they left the same paper up for months, who cared? (I don't remember what I did with this for open house.)
-Make a "Who?" board. Put up a name of some famous or important person. (Joe Biden, Jackie Robinson, Susan B. Anthony, Charles Martel. Use easy ones and hard ones.) During the week, interested kids can write down something about the person and put it in a box. At the end of the week, correct responses are entered in a drawing for some small reward. Then you write something short about the "Who?" person and add it to the board. Keep the old ones up. This way, it's an ongoing bulletin board - no need to have it filled at the beginning of the year, and no need to take it down until the end.
-Posters aren't all bad. Junior-highers liked my Garfield poster, and it wasn't too much trouble to change it once or twice/year.
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