Theme - Racing Theme

I bought a paper table cloth that had a race track theme around the border ( black and white checkered). I cut the border and assembled it to make a straight "track" and laminated it. Then, I used the dye-cut machine to cut out little cars and put each students picture and name on the car along with his/her favorite number. I sectioned off the track with red lines, and each section represents a certain number of books read ( 10, 20, 30, etc.) As the kids pass the AR tests, they advance down the track. I moved everyones cars on Friday after school, and they look forward to seeing how far their car moved on Monday morning. I titled the track "AR Speedway".
If a student reached 100 books, I purchased a $5 trophy with his/her name on it from the trophy shop. Well worth the money!!!

What a cool theme! How about having an area on the rug for storytime that looks like a race track...or a rug leading into the room with road stripes perhaps. You could have a "Traffic Light" behavior chart (vertical Black rectangle with red, yellow, and green circles glued on.)Make cars that have each students'name and hot glue onto a clothespin...the goal is to stay on the green light, of course. How about a reading center that's called "The Racing Pit" and have pillows shaped like cars or decorated with cars somehow. You could also have helpers "flags" to designate different jobs. A variety of safety signs could hang about the room...and your rules could be titled "Our Speed Limits". Oh, and don't forget the "Starting Line" as you come into the room (a checkered flag hanging from the top of the door could be fun). Party supply stores might have a lot of stuff that could help, too. Good luck!

My school uses the "Accelerated Reading Program". Last year our fifth grade hall theme was "Accelerate with AR" and we had each bulletin board in the hall (a total of 6) assigned as part of a "Race Track". We decorated with "Nascar" or the sport of car racing in mind. Each student started at the start line with an Ellison Car Cut Out(decorated of course with their favorite race car number/driver/sponsor etc). Each time they progressed in reading and reached a certain level of point earned or books read, they got to "race" on to the next bulletin board with their race car! This was extremely motivating and they loved the checkered board theme through-out the hallways. I even turned my desk into mini-cars by decorating the backs of the desk with checkered board contact paper and cut out numbers to look like the door panels of race cars! Now this idea of course could apply to any type of "racing". We just happen to live about an hour from the Talledega Raceway so we have many fans here in our community both young and old. Oh yeah, the word CAR well...it has "AR" all wrapped up inside it! Another way to connect it to Accelerated Reading is the word "acclerate" which means to move forward with speed and that's exactly what our kids did this year with reading!
Hope this helps! -Tab

I have used this theme before and started a reading race that lasted throughout the year. Each time a student completed a book, you may want them to report on it or not, they were given a small paper replica of a racecar and had to write the title of the completed book on it. They then placed their car in their lane (the one that followed their first name on the wall). These were kept on the wall all year and as each students line of cars got longer their smiles got bigger. I have even placed "pit stops" around the room (especially for the younger ones) and who ever read enough books to be the first to arrive at each pit stop was given a special prize (hot wheels car, racing calendar, keychain, small car model to build, etc. ). They loved watching their line of cars grow longer and longer.

This is an idea I adapted from Krissy (aka) Buzy Bee. (Does anyone know what happened to her?) My classroom theme is racing so I printed classroom money called Crew Bucks. I simply used a business card template on my computer and pasted clip art of a race car and four dollar signs. If a student ends the day on his blue card (no cards turned) he receives two Crew Bucks. Students who end the day on green (one card turned-warning) receive one Crew Buck. I have a "Banker" every week who is charge of passing out Crew Bucks at the end of the day when we pack. It is the students job to keep up with his/her Crew Bucks as I will not replace any that are lost. We have a store called "The Pit Stop" about every six weeks in which students can spend their bucks. I usually have some kind of juice drinks and snacks/candy for them to buy. I also have two plastic tubs filled with junk collected by my family and students' families that they can purchase from. Last year my mom bought a bunch of different kinds of beads from Wal-Mart and some elastic string to make necklace/bracelet bags. I have bags for boys and girls and they can use the beads and string to make their own jewelry. They cost 15 Crew Bucks and have really been a hit. The most pouplar items in the Pit Stop though are the class coupons. I will type them below along with their prices.
Treat Jar - 5
Teacher Tea - 10
Buddy Lunch - 15
Sit at Teacher's Desk - 15
Extra Recess - 20
Free Time - 20
Show and Tell - 10
Bathroom - 15
No Morning Work - 15

I also made these coupons using a business card template and clip art. I hope this will help. I'll work on getting the coupons and a copy of the Crew Bucks on my website so that others can view them.

I did this in my room and first I had my kids color a car(I made different styles but in racecars) then I made a track up and around the top of my classroom and they could move their car for a reward. Sometimes it could be for making a 100 on a spelling test, math test, etc. When they reached the finish line they could choose another reward. Free time, extra computer time, etc. Also Oriental trading has some checkered and multi-colored pennent flags which I strung up accross the room. I put each class period on a different colored flag and jung them below the clock. A cheap way to make a big checkered flag is to use the wide black paper off the roll and them place sheets of copy paper on it to make the squares. This is cheap and easy. For the reading area I brought in a couple of old tires (cleaned up of course) and placed pillows in the center for the kids to sit in and read. The other teachers thought I was nuts but the kids loved it. You could use the theme "Racing to succeed" Texas Motor speedway has a free poster you can sent for and they were nice enough to send me some racing flags. I know there was more that I did but with the end of the year I am blank. I hope this helps a bit.

I decided to do this too!!! I teach third and have come up with some of these ideas (mostly from this board lol....scroll down and look on other pages for more ideas)

My Welcome board is also Racing Into Third Grade. I always have the kids write a paragraph about what they want to learn in third grade. I made race car stationary on the computer for them to write on and got race car cutouts from the teacher store to put their name on and then they can attach their sheet to the car to hang it up.

My Helper board is "The Pit Crew" I have always used a pocket chart for this to make it easier to move the names from week to week. I got race car stickers to put on the little cards for the pocket chart (it is a very small chart with little pockets on it...originally designed to be a behavior chart for pulling cards)

My reading corner has no name, but I did get a cool black rug with white checks all around the outside edge. I also got some old tires, and my hubby washed and polished them. I made some pillows to put in the middle for kids to sit in and read. I got black and white checkered contact paper to put on the back of my bookcases and file cabinets by the reading corner.

I got a racing bulletin board from Carson Delosa called Rev Up Your Writing. It is perfect for those tired words that kids always use. I got some great matching border to go with it too.

I cant wait to hit Walmart and see what they have and also hit the party store to see what they have as well,

Hope this helped. Good luck. Post any other great ideas you find too!

How about instead of moving their flags down they move them up. So instead of it being a negative consequence it can be a positive consequence.

OK, for example each child would start with a red flag, then move to yellow, then to green, then to white, and then to the checkered flag.

Here is what each flag means, but the students don't need to know this:
red - stop
yellow - caution
green - go
white - 1 lap to go
checkered - finish

There is also a move over flag that is blue with an orange diagonal line, if you wanted to add it.

But when each student makes it to the checkered flag you could reward them in some way.

Just a suggestion, but hopefully it helps. =)

Reading corner: "The Pit Stop" Use black and white check wrapping paper (laminate and it will last all year) to cover the walls in the area. Hang posters of racecars and books and tools. Put up a checkered flag and a sign that says "You always win the race when you read!"

Welcome Message: "Start your engines for ___ grade!"

Job board: Ms./Mr. X's Pit Crew! Put jobs on cars and cut out small people with construction paper or clip-art from computer. Rotate people from car to car.

Just another thought...instead of using bucks, you could make little coupons that say "1 LAP" The coupons could be totalled up to equal a certain number of laps around the racetrack. If you have older students you could add 5 LAP coupons and 10 LAP coupons.

Definitely check the party supply store! I know they have tons of decorations at my local store.

I wrote this for a different post:
I am doing a race theme for the coming year. I ordered some plastic checkered flags. I put the students' pictures on yellow stars with their names. I stapled the stars on the checkered flags. My title is "On your mark, get set, GO!!!" At the bottom I put "Victory..." I bought a Disney Cars jumbo coloring book at Walmart. I colored and cut out the different characters. (My niece was impressed that I used the right colors.) They are spread out on the board. On PT I found a site: ACME dot com/License Maker and printed out CA license plates that say "Second Grade #1." They look like real plates. They are on my board. I also put the character cut outs, checkered flags, and a license plate on my calendar. For my rules I have, "Driven to Succeed..." and "RACE-Respect, Attitude, Cooperate, Encourage." (Also found on PT.) On my door I will have license plates that say, "Welcome to Second". I will also put up the Disney Cars characters. I bought wall stickers at Home Depot. I will put up the checkered flags. At Walmart they have cute Disney Cars fabric. I plan on using it to cover a table in my reading area. My job chart will say, "On the Job Track". Another PT idea. I will put the wall stickers around the room. I also ordered street signs that say different things about reading.
Other PT ideas for the theme:

Rev up your engines for Second Grade
Driven to read, driven to succeed
Full Speed Ahead for a Year of Learning Fun
We're Right on Track for Second Grade
Welcome to Mrs. ____________'s Motor Speedway
On the 'Write' Track
The Winner's Circle

I am having fun with this theme!:)

Hi,
We just finished with a race car theme this year in 7th grade middle school. We have 4 very large bulletin boards above our lockers. We used red sparkle border and found black/white checkered flag material at hobby lobby; you can also find this at a party store as a roll of plastic tablecloth. We covered one board with road maps from an old atlas; put a black meandering road down the middle and titled it "On the Road to success"; We covered one board with black shiny fabric and put our team motto in large letters surrounded by several road signs modified for education. A local sign person did these for use and donated everything. Other smaller boards were "Fuel for the Brain" , this was from a website; Brain in the middle with books from each subject area and arrows from each book going to the brain. "All fired up for learning" fast car picture with smoking tires. On one board we covered the middle with black fabric and each end with the black/white check. We took a picture of each of our students individually in front of a checkered fabric background, then cut them out in flag shapes and glued on popcicle sticks and stapled them to the board.
Hope these ideas help - have a great year.

MLK

My room theme last year was racing. My library was "The Winner's Circle" and I had a string of checkered flags hanging from one side to the other. I also bought a racing bulletin board set from a teacher supply store and used it for AR. My students raced every quarter. They received prizes that had to do with racinf. EX: race cars, folders etc... I also got a couple of stand ups of some NASCAR drivers. EX: Labonte drives for Kellogs so he was in my reading area and he was saying "Reading is Grrrreat!" My helpers were Mrs. Kluge's Pit Crew. For my birthday board I wrote "Checkered Flag Birthdays" and then put their names on checkered flags I got at the teacher store. My welcome board said "Racing into 3rd Grade" and I had the names of each student on a race car. I even found name tags for their desks.

How about:

Racing into _____ Grade!
Mrs. ____________ Pit Crew (for your job chart)
We "Brake" for Birthdays
Racing into a New Year

You could make your behavior board a large race track and they could move their car for misbehavior. They could move it to a yellow flag for a warning...in for a pit stop...or to the garage when major repairs need to be made.

Have fun!
Deb