Are you looking for some quick and easy bulletin board ideas? This post contains an idea that you will love. Better yet, this idea gives you top scores on your teacher evaluation.
Every state, school system, and even individual school is different when it comes to interpreting the teacher evaluation rubric. For our school, teachers receive scores on their bulletin boards. Three criteria are measured.
The bulletin board must:
- display student work
- list the teaching standard
- change on a regular basis – One principal told me she always walks over to the bulletin board to see if the edges of the pages are curled up. If they curl, she knows the bulletin board has been up too long.
This bulletin board idea is really one idea with variants. Create all three boards. Teachers will compliment your creativity.
Bulletin Board Ideas #1 Common Object Trivia
Select a common object. Ideas are more fun to read when the wow factor can be added. This makes ordinary objects ideal.
Some examples include…
Animals
Each student selects a different animal. Students write a sentence or two telling some unique characteristics of their animals.
A fact may be…
- Sharks lay the biggest eggs in the world.
- Gorillas burp when they are happy.
Bread
- During the Middle Ages, people used bread as a plate.
- In 1943, as a wartime conservation effort, the U. S. banned sliced bread.
Pencils
The example photo in this post uses a pencil. Here are a few fun facts students wrote about pencils.
- On March 30, 1858, Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia patented the pencil with an eraser attached to the end. Before this bread crumbs were used as erasers.
- Pencils write in zero gravity and underwater.
- Average pencils can be sharpened 17 times and can draw a line 35 miles long or write 45,000 words.
- More than 14 billion pencils are produced yearly. This is enough to circle Earth 62 times.
- The “lead” in pencils is actually a mixture of clay and graphite.
- Most pencils sold in the United States have erasers; whereas, most pencils sold in Europe do not have erasers.
Resources for Pencil Trivia
- This Day in History
- Little Known Pencil Facts
- 20 Things You Didn’t Know about Pencils
- Interesting Facts about Pencils
Other topics that work well for this project include the dollar bill, shoes, and tape.
Bulletin Board Ideas #2 The Evolution of Technology
For this idea, students write a sentence or short paragraph about a technological device. Click on the button to get handouts for the telephone, camera, and music players. The end result is a timeline showing how technology has progressed over time for this device.
The prepared handouts include 20 student pages for the music player category. Eight illustrations are included for the camera and eleven for the telephone. Student pages are provided in both black and white and colored options. The handouts are on Google Slides. Print the handouts for students to write on.
You will find all handouts including the link for the Google Slide student packet for this post in this one handout.
Students type their information directly on the Google Slide. Print the slides and then display them on a bulletin board.
One student writes about how the gramophone was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. Other students write about the first transistor radio, cassette tape player, CD player, and MP3 player.
Writing about the evolution of a device requires a little more research than just looking for an interesting fact about an ordinary object. This is an easy way to teach the standards for writing a short research project.
Bulletin Board Ideas #3 How to Make a Million Dollars?
For this idea, students find ways people became rich from really simple inventions.
How fun is this? With just a little Google searching, students learn about how Post-It Notes and Scotch Tape made $3.47 billion in 2009.
Are you old enough to remember Pet Rocks? In 1975, Gary Dahl came up with the idea of selling rocks for $4.00 each. The estimated profit for this idea is $15 million.
Scott Boilen came up with a brilliant advertising campaign to sell the Snuggie. The approach worked. The Snuggie has earned more than $200 million.
Do you wish you invented fidget spinners, a $500-million-dollar business?
The list goes on and on. After students write about simple ways people have become rich, you can extend this activity to include their ideas. How could they make a million dollars?
Creating the Bulletin Board
For each of these ideas, the bulletin board is simple to create.
Students research interesting facts on the assigned topic.
Each student selects one fact and writes about it. The writing can be on a regular sheet of paper with a hand-drawn or computer-printed illustration. Students may also write facts on shapes.
The pencil pattern is attached to the handout.
Scatter the shapes on the bulletin board, or line up full pieces of paper.
Add a catchy caption and the teaching standard. In just a few minutes, the new bulletin board is up and looks great.
Please share your completed projects! I would love to see the final bulletin boards.
