Visual learners in the classroom will gain much additional knowledge from the bulletin board displays in the classroom. Connect a bulletin board to each unit lesson taught to add peripheral learning to the teacher instruction.
Understanding the Importance of Bulletin Boards
Although many teachers attempt to create bulletin board displays that do not change for the entire year, creating unit displays that follow lesson plans enhance student learning. Visual learners take in everything around them in the classroom and often remember specifics from what they see later when taking tests. For example, a visual learner may be able to remember whether the location of written information on a single page – top, bottom, left side or right.
Adding bulletin board displays that reinforce key facts and other pertinent information will be a great benefit to visual learners. These can include related information to specific lessons, important unit plans or basic information that is important to the particular year of school. For example, a multiplication bulletin board for the year students will learn their times tables.
Creative Bulletin Board Ideas
Create a bulletin board display for important units in the math curriculum. Although it may be difficult to come up with ideas for math displays, this is in fact an important tool towards helping your students learn each concept. For younger grades, create an interactive bulletin board that helps students practice their math skills. In a pre-k classroom, create an ice cream counting display. The cones stay on the board, and the scoops of ice cream each have a number. Have the students put the ice cream on the cones in order, or backwards. You can also teach skip counting with this display.
Use one bulletin board display for your Social Studies unit plan. When discussing United States History, for example, put up a large map of the United States and have students add facts to each state as they learn them. You can also add pins to the map to represent the states that different students have visited. With a little more work, you can create a trivia map where each state has a question written on it and the students lift the state up to find the answer. You can provide answers at the end of the unit for students to check against their own answers.
Create a display for your literature units as well, displaying information about the authors and other trivia related to the topics of discussion. To motivate students to read in the younger grades, create a hall display of homemade kites cut from construction paper with the student's name. Hang a piece of yarn from each kite, and have students write a summary of each book they complete on a construction paper bow to tape on their string. The students will love watching their kite fly higher and higher with all the bows.
Think of ways to use creative bulletin board displays to enhance student learning in your classroom. Eye catching displays with important facts will draw student attention, and interactive displays will encourage students to engage in learning activities. If time is an issue, utilize your parent volunteers to help make these bulletin boards.
Related Information:
Student of the Week Bulletin Board - This is a great way to get to know each student in the class.
Find other free bulletin board ideas.
Jennifer Wagaman - Jennifer is a mother of 2 and has both public, private and administrative experience in the education field.
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