Wishing you a wonderful holiday season from kindergarten-lessons.com

New Christmas bulletin board ideas

If you are feeling tired of the same Christmas bulletin boards year after year, try these new ideas. Create a Christmas math based bulletin board that integrates measurement and art.

• Have the students create trees of various sizes, decorate and measure them with one inch blocks
• Make a ruler out of squares of paper to go on one side of the bulletin board
• Arrange the trees on the board with stars above

For more details and diagrams of the above see...

Another idea is to base a bulletin board on literature. The sample I used is the story of Petunia's Christmas. Written by Roger Duvoisin, Petunia's Christmas is a wonderful story on which to create a story map Christmas bulletin board.

In a nutshell, Petunia, a pet goose, meets a charming gander called Charles. Alas, Charles is not a pet and is being fattened for a Christmas dinner. Children love to discover how Petunia solves the problem of saving the handsome gander.

Read the story a number of times. After each reading discuss one or two of the story elements. The first time talk about the characters. Next, the setting and season, then the problem and how Petunia solves it. Then work together to create the following story map elements to create a Christmas bulletin board.

• the characters
• the setting
• the problem
• the events
• and the solution

For more details and images...

Holiday Gift

My holiday gift to you is an assortment of free Christmas tracers to make decorations to go with the Petunia's Christmas bulletin board (or just to have fun with). My students had a great time tracing, cutting, gluing, and decorating with them. Remember to keep it simple and enjoy the season.

To download tracers, go to...

Have a merry holiday season classroom tips:

• Ask parents/guardians/older students to help with craft preparations
• Make name labels with inkjet sticky labels for the abundance of decorations that students create
• Provide students with large Christmas tracers
• Make a Christmas imagination station
• Get ready for January before you start your vacation

Happy Teaching,

Patricia from kindergarten-lessons.com