Bulletin Boards

The 5Rs of Bullying

It is March so kites seemed like an appropriate vehicle to carry the ways to handle bullying: recognize; refuse; report; record; and receive.

The kites were made from craft sticks and tissue paper, the ties on the tails are tissue paper, and the kites are attached with thin wire.  For the tails to be 3D our creative parent volunteer who constructed this board covered wire with rafia.  The clouds are just puffs of white tissue paper and the red birds are just construction paper cut outs.

Kindness Counts

This bulletin board features the cut outs of the hands of students in grades K-5 that are in groups with the counselors.  It is great to display kid work but I did not want their names on them since they were done in the counseling office.  We are promoting kindness this month so we read a book about kindness and then had each student say something kind they do and draw it on the palm of their hand.  I let them know it is going to be displayed in the hall (which they all like). My favorite book is "Each Kindness" by J. Woodson, a powerful book about how each small act of kindness makes the world a better place.  It works for grades 2-5.  For my K-1 students I read "Kindness to Share from A to Z" by T. Snow.  Another book for grades 1-2 is "Kindness Is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler"  by M. Cuyler.  I used red paper and a red heart border for the background and pink letters for the theme.  I offered students the option to make a pink or white hand then arranged them in alternating rows around a bright red sparkling heart in the center.  Students stop several times a day to find where their hand is and admire the acts of kindness.

Bright Ideas for 2013

This upbeat new year's theme bulletin board features some good ideas and some cute fluorescent light bulbs.  I just mad a template by copying a Google image of a bulb I liked, cut our a dozen from white card stock, and covered the base with aluminum foil to make them realistic.  I also added a few lines with sharpie to make the screw marks.  The neon colored letters make it very bright.

We're All Unique

Counselors are always celebrating uniqueness.  What better way to celebrate but with unique snowflakes.  This bulletin board was made special by the stand of simple white lights.  I had never used the plug right below the board before but it did up the wow factor.  I also hung some kid made snowflakes from the ceiling in front to the board to give it more depth.  The snow person is simply the 3 sizes of copy paper folded in accordion style and put together to form circles. We went with pompom ear muffs because there was no room for a hat and this could be more gender neutral.  The tiny scarf was made by one of our assistant elves. I am leaving this up for the first 2 weeks back in January.

College and Career Awareness

This was a fun bulletin board my part-time co-counselor and I created. The background is a collage of cut up college brochures.  I recommend you cut butcher paper to fit, glue them on, and laminate because it can be reused.  We also laminated the cards with pictures of  college graduates our students would know (trying to highlight several from our own state universities). The person's name and occupation is on the front of the card with a picture, inside is the name of the university. we laminated the banner too because we recycle successful bulletin boards every 2-3 years.

Reuse the Background

After a month I took down the famous graduates and simply displayed some of our growing collection of banners.  We try to highlight a lot of schools in our state.  Two parents stopped to tell me which of the school's featured they attended because it is where their relationship started.  They then looked at every picture in the background to see which were from their school.

THINK Postsecondary

I had covered this background up for two months but left it up to reuse one more time.  I want students to understand there are options besides college after high school.  I did a straight "path" showing our Elementary school (first block at bottom), Middle school, and High School.  Then I left a space and gave the four choices for postsecondary education: community college, vocational school, military (I showed symbols for 5 services but it would have been nice to include the Guard too), and college.  I put the header off center so I could add a step for advanced studies.  I refer to the board in my career lessons in grades 2-5.  I think the board conveys the message K-16 (it would be PreK to 16 but our school does not have any preschool).

Connecting the Pieces of Good Character

This bulletin board used pre-cut foam pieces with the names of the 6 pillars of character and two descriptors for each character trait.  I needed to cut one set from just a foam sheet because one of the traits used a color not included in the pre-cut pack.  My school psychologist made the banner for the title on the computer.  We used brown as a nuetral background and four of the colors as boarder strips.  This board was both colorful and educational.

 Mirror Mirror...Who's New

This is actually 2 large bulletin boards in our front hall.  We have framed our new students and staff to help people get to know their names and faces.  The staff are 3-D.  We covered small dessert paper plates with aluminum foil and then added the printed silver frame.  This bulletin board is a team effort.  One of our office assistants takes the staff pictures and the pupil services staff take the pictures of all our new staff at our Welcome Receptions.  We actually have one more today so we will be adding more.  Our school psychologist printed and put together the beautiful sign in the middle. Thanks pupil services team!

 Counseling Helps Students Grow!

I used the scrunchy boarder made out strips of the large paper (on rolls) to tie this bulletin board together.  I made fancy fall leaf letters from one of the websites you see on Pinterest regularly.  I wanted the water can to be 3D so we used half an Oatmeal container as the base.  We put important words on the water drops and used tissue paper flowere with pipe cleaner stems.  This did take more time than most of my others but for the first one of the year I like to start off strong.  This board helps advertise the counseling program theme to start the year.

Education Now = Good Jobs Later

 

 This bulletin board was also taken from my favorite "Counseling on the Wall" by Roseanne Sartori.  She actually visited my school and got to see this adaption in person.  There are good quotes about education and the future.  I chose not to use the border with school buses provided in the book because I just wanted something simple for the end of the year.

5th Grade Promotion

This great bulletin board was done by several parent volunteers!  Each leaf has a baby picture on the outside, the inside flap is a sentence the child wrote about "When I grow up...", and the bottom part a picture taken in grade 5.  What a nice send off and very engaging!

Perseverance

 This is another easy bulletin board adapted from Counseling On The Wall! (Sartori) published by MAR*CO.  I used my shiny red border, silver stars, and the quotes and title poster from the CD.  Staff and students need to persevere to the end of the year!

Bust It! Myths about Mental Health

The School Psychologist at my school did this for National Mental Health Month a few years ago.  The bubble wands made it very cute!


Pleasant and Unpleasant Feelings

This bulletin board was adapted from Roseanne Sartori's book Counseling on the Wall which makes is so fast to do bulletin boards. You print out the balloons and sign from the CD that comes with the book published by Marco. I cut out a picture of the character from Up to hold the balloons with pleasant feelings, added some tissue paper clouds and a white border. The first graders at my school loved that I included this character from the movie...

Relational Aggression

This bulletin board shows the cycle of relational aggression. RA occurs when fear, security, popularity and power are used to coerce control.

Picture the Possibilities

This bulletin board featured the presenters from our career fair, unfortunately we did not get a good picture of everyone. We tried to get 4 presenters from each of the 6 career paths. Our theme expresses our belief that we don't want children to pick one occupation but rather explore many options. Our students took notes about 2 occupations and to cement learning wrote a paragraph about what they learned at the Career Fair.


Career Development

We use the 6 career paths based on the Missouri Career Education materials (which are excellent). The green road signs (which should have been larger) are the names of the 6 paths. This bulletin board showed career vehicles that would match each path. For example, for the Health path there is an ambulance and animal control van. For the Fixing & Building path are a variety of construction vehicles. Don't be afraid to go beyond the border of your bulletin board, it actually adds visual interest to go out side the box!

Character Counts!

We use the 6 character traits at our school. This bulletin board reinforced the 6 traits and was appealing to our students.



Introduce Staff and Roles

This is the bulletin board we did this year to explain "Whoo" a student can talk to about various topics. At the bottom of the tree are two owls with the names of the two school counselors. Creating the tree with texture is easy just using the paper rolls of bulletin board paper wrinkled up and stapled into place. The owls were cut out of foam sheets and decorated with sharpie and feathers. I borrowed the idea for this display from another counselor but unfortunately I did not write down her name or school. This year Staples has lots of owl accessories that could be used for a quicker version of this board.

This bright board was created by our school psychologist and school social worker to introduce the pupil services staff and explain what each person does at school. The pockets have brochures that describe our roles, the school counseling program, and our Intervention Assistance Team on which we all serve.

We should accept differences until differences make no difference
This is the description of the lesson I post next to the bulletin board:
Grade 4, Lesson 1
School Counseling Program
Theme: The organizing theme for grade four is “Getting along now and tomorrow”
Essential Question: How and why should we celebrate diversity?
VA Standard: Understand that Americans are one people of many diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and national origins who are united as Americans by common customs and traditions.
Activities:
- Preview activity Write 5 “I am…” statements
- Shoulder share statements with partner
- Pairs tell class what they had in common
- PowerPoint “Celebrate Diversity”
- Make hand representing individual student background and strengths
- Share on common bulletin board
Assessment: Teacher observation; each student creates a hand identifying their own ethnic and cultural diversity
Note: Students get to select the color paper to use for their hand. They put their name in the center and decorate each finger and palm with pictures that illustrate their background and strengths.