Spring Dreaming, originally uploaded by mrsgteach.

Here’s a charming Spring display for a library that could be easily adapted for use as a classroom display.

Materials:

blue butcher paper background

handcrafted tree -construction paper

rainbow border

ellison lettering and book

handcrafted bunny and easter objects by Tommy Kovac

Easter Duck purchased

Poem and April is Poetry Month on construction paper

‘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:

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

‘Where the Wild Things Are’, originally uploaded by norirelibjk.

This excellent wall display was made for an assembly hall. Using the book ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ as a starting point this Year 2 class made up their own monsters using different materials.

Assembly hall displays give a great opportunity for classes to share their work with the rest of the school. Hall displays tend not to get changed quite as often as classroom displays but it is important to keep them fairly fresh. I think they should be changed at least once every term. The subject needs to be even clearer than for a classroom wall as the audience will not have been involved with the work and so will not have much context for it.

In my old school hall displays were often put up in conjunction with a Sharing Assembly where the class concerned shared what they’d been doing with the rest of the school. It usually worked well and provided an extra opportunity for the class to reflect on not only what, but also how they had learnt about a topic.

This is such a lovely display and it is based on one of my all time favourite children’s books. I think every child should have a right to meet Max in his wolf suit and travel with him to the wild rumpus and be home in time for supper to be “still warm”.

Owl day 034, originally uploaded by Leeds Lass.

This is a delightful classroom display that uses one of my favourite books. Owl Babies is a wonderful story that children in Year 2 and even Year 3 love to read. There’s something about the story of those three little owls, especially Percy’s constant longing for his Mummy, that really resonates for this age group.
Here it’s been used to show how a story webs and ladders can be used to map out plots. The display also encourages the children to make longer sentences by using connectives and time words. The display has a well thought out mix of visual imagery taken from the book, explanations, vocabulary words (interesting connectives and time words) and children’s work.
The cuddly owls, ivy and 3d tree add a real ‘wow’ factor to the display making it likely to grab children’s attention. Close inspection of the owls suggests that they are commercially made toys. However it wouldn’t be impossible to make something less elaborate from fun fur to achieve a similar effect. On the tree stump and branch wood grain wall paper has been used to great effect and fake ivy round the tree stump adds another attractive 3d element.

Titles and text have all been laminated and the major elements of this display could be stored and brought out again another year making it fairly quick to re-create.
The children’s work has been well integrated into the display. They have used what they’ve learnt about story webs to weave one for another Year 2 favourite, The Lighthouse Keeper’s Catastrophe. All in all I think this is a fine classroom display

Up Dated

Following a request in the comments to this post Michelle has provided us with more details of how the display linked into her literacy activities.

Photographs

Drama activities based on the Owl Babies book:
Freeze frame-owlets at different stages of the story

Hot seating-Babies and Mother

Conscience Alley-child in role of Mummy Owl

Ladder

Set out as

Beginning

Middle

End

Writing

Retell story of Owl Babies as a story ladder.

Display

Time words on the branches.

Connectives are displayed within the web

Story Web

Based on Pig in the Pond-could be any sequential story. Each child wrote part of the story/illustrated it, then displayed within the web. FIRST they had done the frame activity which involved passing a ball of wool round as they each told part of the story, in and back to the middle, thereby weaving a story web.