Originally by Sarah, Sparklebox

This is one of those classroom displays that shows a splash of creative thinking goes a long way. Many primary classrooms suffer the curse of the water bottle these days. It’s important that children have access to drinking water but the bottles are a pain. If they are left on the tables there are inevitable spills and putting them on a tray at the side isn’t much better. I like this idea. It’s an elegant solution to the problem and it’s been done in a fun and attractive way. Sarah says:

A good use of shoe holders for water bottles. The children love it!

All of this doesn’t even start to address the issue of whether constant access to water really does have the benefits sometimes claimed for it. There’s a lot of emphasis on water as part of schemes like Brain Gym and I’ve seen some evidence that suggest dyslexics in particular might need extra fluids. One thing is for sure, children on ADHD medication do sometimes get very thirsty.

I do have concerns about all the environmental impact of all those plastic bottles, not to mention worries about the hygiene issues involved in re-using them.

Still this is an interesting and practical way of dealing with the problem and experience suggests that classroom displays with sharks or whales on them are always popular with children. By the way, I do realise it’s not a porpoise but I couldn’t resist the pun

Model and Diorama, originally uploaded by Mulsanne.

Today’s classroom display has an environmental theme in honour of Blog Action Day. I love this project which was done as part of the International Polar Year .

Dee, the teacher writes:

I began with a classroom standard, a KWL chart. On the KWL chart, students first listed what they knew (K) about Antarctica. Next, they listed questions they wanted (W) answered. Eventually, they would list what they learned (L) on the last part of the chart. The students asked some very good questions. Where do icebergs come from? What do blue whales eat in the waters surrounding Antarctica? How tall are emperor penguins? How did Shackleton and his men survive being trapped in ice? Why don’t fish freeze in the cold waters? What’s on the ocean floor? These were just a few of the questions they listed.

Not content with getting groups doing lots of online and book based research the children were able to follow and interact with the expedition team on their blog. The display came about because:

……we decided we wanted a visual representation to go along with our research. “Our Visit to The Ice” was created to provide us an avenue for artistic expression.

And it certainly did that! Have a look at all these detailed models:


My particular favourite is a model of Shacklton’s Endurance trapped in the ice:

But the penguins are cute too

I think my students would agree that “Our Visit to The Ice” was the next best thing to a field trip to Antarctica.

I chose this display because I can’t think of anything better to be exploring with children than the wonders of such a unique and threatened environment. This is one of those projects that brings the unfamiliar to life for children and gives opportunities for deep learning. Those children will remember this project and I hope their generation will forgive ours for not taking better care of this fragile and special place.
Note Any earnings from today’s post will be donated to Common Ground a UK based charity. (As of 16/10/07 = $3)

Update: If any UK schools fancy doing something similar there are some UK teachers heading South in a few weeks . You can follow their exploits here and here - you can also find lots of lovely resources in their blog sidebars. If you create any displays based on the project please let me know

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!

It can be hard to get creative with numeracy classroom displays. Here’s a lovely interactive numeracy idea to challenge early finishers. It’s also great use of the, slightly grim, brick corners many classrooms have. Rosa says:

Children have various questions to answer. This is used at the beginning of the lesson and the end, for those ‘what do I do now ?’ times.

This display could be adapted for any age just by varying the questions based on their current targets. The questions are colour coded and differentiated so they give a great opportunity for independent work.

The laminated digits and posters make this an almost instant display and, by varying the questions over the year, it can have a permanent place in the classroom. If you look closely you’ll see there is even a space underneath the questions for the children to post their solutions:

Quick to make, easy to copy with an element of interaction and space for children’s voice. All together a really great use of classroom displays as learning objects.

Pirate Pop-Ups, originally uploaded by LindaH.

Pneumatics were used to make these pop-up toys by Year 3. You can see how they work from the back here:

The basic design used a cereal box. One side was covered in blue funky foam (neoprene) and simple shapes were cut out to make the scene. Children then made a pirate, jolly roger, shark or other monster and stuck it onto a lolly pop stick. The pnuematic system was then attached using masking tape.
This formed part of the Treasure Island themed work for the Telling into Writing project. More details about Telling into Writing on usefulwiki