December Bulletin Board

Every month my school works on a differnt writing standard to be displayed on a bulletin board. The month of December we are working on friendly letters. My class is going to be writing friendly letters to The Gingerbread Man. You could read the story and then have them write a friendly letter to the G-Man. Have the students cut out a big G-Man and post their letters on it. They can decorate them and so on. This will correspond with the literature response standard and one of the letter writing standards. Hope this was helpful.

I would begin to talk about the season of winter and I would bring up Jack Frost who is a fictional character. Then I would make up a story starter and have Jack Frost bring something other than winter when he arrives late in December. My kids had a ball with it and the pictures that they drew were incredible!

I use a Gingerbread Theme during the month of December which is appropriate for children of all religions. I send home a large tag board gingerbread shape and ask the family to help decorate it and send it back to school. I use them for a bulletin board as well as teaching about the Five Senses at this time.
We use empty school milk cartons to make Gingerbread houses and of course Gingerbread cookies.

I need to do a bulletin board for holidays around the world in December. What I am planning on doing is putting a picture of the earth in the middle (large globe). Then with each country that we study I am going to put a string to that country and write a little something on the side (on a decorative piece of paper (hopefully in the shape of something that is unique to that contries holiday celebration)).

:s) I have little Christmas Trees for each student (cut out of construction paper)...and I put those peppermint candies on each tree (to look like ornaments)...enough for each school day until Christmas Break. The students count each day the number left on their tree...they pull of one per day.
I teach K....but in first, you could have them write subtraction sentences, etc.

who loves to do creative things. She made a gingerbread house out of a cardboard box for my bulletin board last year. There are different kinds of candies on the house. I was thinking you could put questions like, "How many peppermints and candy canes all together?" or "How many more licorice sticks than gumdrops?" I saved the house from last year and will use it over and over. I don't know if you were looking for anything that time consuming, but some teachers enjoy making creative bulletin boards. :s)

I have a large Christmas tree light pattern. The kids write things they can do to help others and go over the text with black marker. Then they color the bulbs, I hang them and connect them with thin, glittery tinsel garland. The caption reads "We can light the world with kindness."

I'm a new teacher, but so far i've enjoyed the creative part of being a teacher the best. i'm doing a couple of bulletin boards for the season. One we are going to do the camouflaged gingerbread men. they took that project home this week and its due on monday. i'll make the bulletin board from foil, to look like a cookie sheet. i may have the students do a writing assignment to go with this board. the other one i'm going to do are glyphs. but a little differently than a K class would do. we are going to make gifts, and make them from different colors of foam/paper stuff. each color will represent a talent or gift that student has, or other things about that student. the bows will be made of pipe cleaners. however, the students are going to interview thier partner, and then do a glyph about thier partner, rather than themselves. we will talk about how everyone offers something different to the class/world. (i'm at a christian school, so i will talk about the fruits of the spirit as well). then, they will write sentences about what they learned about thier partner. "Audrey is very good at math. Audrey loves to give to others..." This will all be written on Christmas themed computer paper that we're going to glitter. They will have to tell the glass what they learned about thier partner- and end it with _________ is a gift to our class". The title of this board will be something like "Our First Graders are a Gift From God"...or something catchy. Just an idea. If you need more info, because its confusing just ask. I"m on my day 5 of a headache this week, so i'm not making a ton of sense :). Good Luck!

I have a picture of a gift box with a little girl coming out of it. It came out of an old bulletin board book. Anyway, I use to put it up with a caption that said, "If I Could Give Any Gift...". Then I had my students write about what gift they would give to someone else if they could give any gift without worrying about money. Some were very sentimental. :s)

I had my students make holiday pictures using geometric shapes. They used construction paper and cut out circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles and then used those to make Santas, reindeer, snowmen, and Christmas trees (with presents underneath made out of squares!). They got to pick two of those to make and glued their creation on a sheet of paper and drew a winter/holiday scene around it. I put them on a bulletin board with a sign that said Happy Holidays. It's more of an art project, than a math activity, but since they are dealing with shapes and symmetry it could be counted as a math activity.

Here is the recipe...

2 parts Ivory Snow or similar soap powder (not liquid)
1 part Water
* You can also add food coloring for texture paintings....hopefully not YELLOW SNOW..LOL

Mix Ivory Snow and water and beat until it is the consistency of whipped cream. Divide the mixture into paper cups or small bowls.

Use this mixture as you would use any paint with brushes. This can also be used as "snow" for snow pictures or on a Christmas tree as pretend snow (take a handful and rub on branches. Let dry).

Also you could grow a borax snowflake
http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howtos/ht/boraxsnowflake.htm