‘The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark’, originally uploaded by norirelibjk.

It can be very hard to photograph classroom displays in corridors. This lovely work is based on that old favourite “The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark.” norirelibjk is an NQT who is also the library manger. She says:

As a class we read this book together and our literacy lessons were based on it over a week. We wrote book reviews using an assortment of templates. Also included were some blurbs and alternative chapter endings.
This display was put up along our year 4 corridor, outside the Library, (opposite my classroom), which meant the whole school passed it.
I put it up in time for our first Parent/Carer evening. it had lots of interest and not just from my class’s parents. (year 4 age 8/9)

I just love the owl. He was made in an interesting way:

‘Plop’ was made by the class drawing around their hands; colouring them brown, grey or leaving them white and then cutting them out. A girl drew ‘Plop’ and then I layered and stuck on the hands to give the effect of feathers.
‘Plop’ is now in our book corner as display just been changed.

Here’s a close up of him in his new position:

Corridors are great places for the class to share their learning with the rest of the school and others, even if they are hard places to photograph!
The book is a real classic and paperback read alone copies can be found in most schools. Still, my favourite version for using with classes is this heavily illustrated one:

The audio book, read by Maureen Lipman, is great too:

Classroom dragon, originally uploaded by hale_popoki.

This was the first ever display on the Classroom Displays blog and I thought I’d revive it as it remains one of the best I’ve seen for Chinese New Year.
Tina said this display was:

used in our multicultural performance today.
(After school I removed the grip sticks and hung the dragon up in the classroom.)
The body is made of paper plates all strung together….one plate for each student (and one for me) Each plate has a self-portrait drawing on it

She also adds some important advice:

If you do try it, I’d suggest NOT using tissue paper for the dragon scales. It wrinkles too easily, especially if little ones are handling it.
Our school colors are red and gold, and the quickest way for me to get the red and gold paper on short notice was to go to the gift wrap section of the local Walgreen’s! However, gold was only available in gift wrap tissue. On the plus side, I used the school die-cutter to cut out the dragon scales, and that was done quickly using the thin tissue paper.
I think this school year I will try to shop around for inexpensive red and gold wrapping paper around Christmas time. =)
It took me a lot longer than I thought to string all those plates together (and I crossed my fingers that it wouldn’t fall apart as the students paraded across the stage with it! It didn’t……phew!)

I’d love to have seen it in action! If you do decide to copy it please let me know here. I’d like to see other people’s interpretations of the dragon.

I blogged a great version of this Snow Dudes classroom display last January. The new one is a slightly different, darker take on the subject.

Debbie says:

I have some bulletin boards that I do year after year because I love them so much. This is one of them.

My Snow Dudes board is one of my favorites! We read a book called “Snow Dude” and then make our own dudes with mini books. This year I actually had to have a few kids re-do their Snow Dudes because they made theirs full of bloody bullet holes or holding chainsaws. Not really appropriate for 2nd grade, no? You still might see a few scary dudes in there, as I did let some slide.

She tags the wall display

Snow Dudes should not be riddled with bullet holes

Some kids play too many video games and it messes with their creativity.

I’m she did them again this year. I loved last year’s. This 2nd grade looked to me like they might be harder work but Debbie quickly corrected me:

just wanted to point out again that this class is not “harder work than last year” as you said and blogged. I would hate to give them a label based on their artwork alone. I don’t think that would be quite fair of anyone to say who has not met them. Yes, their sense of creativity is different than last year’s class, but they are a wonderful group of children and are very strong academically.

She’s right or course. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. To me the dudes don’t look quite so cute but they are still very creative. I like Debbie’s choice of a darker background for this year’s version.

I’m intrigued by the final tag. The imagery of some of the video games is so powerful it blast its way into the kids imaginations and overwhelms them. Still, I can remember little boys of my long ago school days endlessly drawing soldiers, tanks, guns and dead Germans. It’s a stage I think many kids, especially boys, go through. How we handle that in the classroom is quite a tricky question.

Another point raised by the two displays is the different dynamics at play in classes from year to year. Classes almost seem to have a sort of ‘group personality’ and I sometimes wonder if it relates to their collective learning styles or maybe just the balance of genders. It’s one of the aspects of teaching that keeps it fresh and interesting, and the best teachers modify what they do each year to reflect the needs of that class.

A detailed description of the work that went into these classroom display can be found here : Classroom Displays Blog - Snow Dudes