Creating A Back To School Bulletin Board With Greg From The Kindergarten Smorgasboard

Check out more great ideas from Greg's The Kindergarten Smorgasboard Blog!

"Bulletin Boards aren’t something I use very often in my classroom. For one, we have some very small boards in our classroom and those are used for student work, our Instagram picture board, and our required focus wall. We don’t have boards outside of our classroom in the hallway, so we just hang stuff on the walls. So when Fadeless Paper reached out and asked if I would like to use their materials to create some boards, of course, I said yes because I love to get out of my comfort zone and try new things. Also, as always, we never share products we haven’t used and if we use a product and don’t think it’s a good product, we don’t recommend it. After using the Fadeless Paper, I HIGHLY recommend it for all of your classroom needs.

I know how important morale and encouragement are in our schools. Trust me, ya’ll. I know. I get it. The last 2.5 years have been incredibly difficult for teachers, staff, and administrators. I am always looking for ways to support my co-workers so that’s where this simple, collaborative bulletin board came from.

I used Fadeless Paper which came in a storage box for easy storage and tearing! I used Brite Blue fadeless paper and lime Bordette Border. The circles are cut from Pacon cardstock. The letters are cut from dark pink Tru-Ray construction paper!

Morale Boosting Bulletin Boards

The jar was drawn on the board using a Sharpie. Full transparency: I CAN NOT DRAW so my VERY talented friend, Taylor, drew the jar for me (she also did the lettering on the envelope because she is THAT talented ya’ll!)!

Here’s how our social-emotional learning board works:

The idea is to fill our jar with compliments and positive moments from our school! Think of a candy jar that we keep full in our classrooms so people know they can stop by and get chocolate…

The envelope contains a bunch of blank circles (the gumballs for our jar!) tape, and a Sharpie. When our staff sees something positive in our school, whether teachers, staff, or students, they add that moment to the jar. We want the jar to be full of positive moments from our school. And if the jar gets full, we will empty it and fill it again!

So what I hope is that when someone is having a bad day or needs some uplifting, they can stop by and read all of the positivity in our jar and it will help them feel better in a small way. I also hope that this helps us shift our focus to being supportive and positive!

You can also modify the board and allow students to share positive things they see and experience!"

Check out the full video here!

-Greg from The Kindergarten Smorgasboard