Sunflower display, originally uploaded by LindaH.

I’m going to do a series of posts highlighting classroom displays for spring over the next week or so. I love this cheery display, it’s an ideal spring display and could be adapted in a number of ways to include class work if used in an older classroom.

All the things on this display were been made by children (oldest is age 4) and their parents. The families worked with the school learning mentors as part of the family learning initiative.

The butterflies and bees can be seen in more detail here:

Julie, a learning mentor said:

The butterflies proved rather addictive and were great fun to make . Originally the learning mentors made them for a craft stall at the school fair.

The butterflies were made from clothes pegs and tissue paper squares. Bee wings were made by drawing round children’s feet on wax paper.

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Christmas angels - Peace on earth, originally uploaded by perfect_circle80.

I am about to vanish for a couple of days holiday but I couldn’t resist this one before I go. Amazing what you can do with shiny paints, sequin waste, old wrapping paper and paper doilies! These angels would brighten up any classroom and couldn’t be simpler.

Perfectcircle says:

These were done with hand prints. the heel and thumb painted red, and the fingers white. Messy, but fun!

I think they are great fun and I’m sure the kids did too. They also provide a jolly, almost instant Christmas display.

Here’s another gem from the same classroom:

These are so simple to do - everyone does one hand print in the middle, washes hands, then both hands into lovely gold paint (I think I’d be tempted to add some glitter ). Leave to dry then decorate as desired. They’d be nice hanging from a washing line too. Talking of washing lines…..

Just to finish off, from the classroom of an old friend, how about these?

Red Red Robin, originally uploaded by LindaH.

This is one of those classroom displays that works best on a large wall. The original was floor to (a fairly low) ceiling. This meant that the robins were quite a bit larger than life size!
The display looks impressive but it was fairly quickly done. The wall was backed with sugar paper. It was at the entrance to the classroom where it didn’t get direct sunlight so wouldn’t fade.The bare trees were made from old tights, the leaves at the bottom were re-cycled from the autumn display and the snow was just cotton wool. The titles just printed and cut out.
The main focus was on the making of the robins. This display was in the SERF unit which served a range of ages and abilities within the school. The robins had to be a simple design and yet leave room for the older children to express themselves. I think it has worked well from that point of view.
I spoke to the teacher and speech therapist involved in the display and they felt it was important that it was used as a starting point for lots of speaking and listening work. I love this commitment to making the display a regular part of the teaching strategy. It’s powerful stuff. The display evolved over several days and the children were involved at every stage.They also enjoyed singing the song
Some of the children found change very difficult so working on classroom displays like this gave lots of opportunity to prepare for the changing season.

BFG, originally uploaded by LindaH.

Multi-purpose classroom displays are often the most useful. Year 5 studied the BFG and made their own dream catchers. The glass jar contain children’s bad dreams. Each child filled a jar with things to represent their worst nightmares. The jars are named and have a list of ingredients on the front.
This was a really powerful way of getting them to connect with the book. Everyone tried to have the most awful things in their jar and in the course of doing this there were lots of great opportunities for talking and listening, and for creative problem solving.
The children had to work out how to represent their worst fears in a concrete form that could go inside a jar. Strong stuff, as children tried to work out what to use for war, poverty, famine and death. Of course there were a fair number of spiders and other more nameless monsters too
This work showed a lovely integration of literacy with emotional literacy. It stayed fresh and interesting for a long time too as children read the contents of each jar and discussed issues that would not have been easily raised any other way. Classroom displays that continue being a talking point for weeks like this are worth their weight in gold!