How to Decorate a Classroom With an Indiana Jones Theme
Whether you're a fan of the man in the fedora, or you just want to add a little adventure to your lessons, these thrifty tips can turn your classroom into a kingdom of learning.
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Things You'll Need
- Brown butcher paper
- Brown and green construction paper
- Tagboard or white construction paper
- Paper grocery bags
- Markers
- Computer printer
- Travel photos (you can pull these from the Internet)
- Old Halloween decorations, especially fake spiders and webbing, snakes and bugs
- Canvas, burlap or other tent material
- Flashlights
- Green or brown crepe paper
Instructions
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Indiana Jones and the Lost Students
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(This is a great first-day activity that doubles as a bulletin board or door decoration.)
Help! Indy's lost the names of the students in his classroom. Help him find them with cartouches.
First, use a hieroglyph translator from the Internet to spell out the names of your students. Write each name in hieroglyph on a thin strip of white construction paper or tagboard. (Or make your own symbols that correspond to each letter of the alphabet.) -
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Crumple brown butcher paper or grocery bags and flatten. (Use an iron at the lowest setting to smooth it out, and you'll get a worn, almost leathery look.) Use your paper to cover a bulletin board, wall space or the inside of your classroom door.
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Print or hand-letter a sign that says, "Indiana Jones and the Lost Students" and attach it to the butcher paper.
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Write the hieroglyph alphabet on your white board or chalkboard, with the corresponding English letters below.
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Explain that ancient Egyptians used symbols in their written language. Cartouches were articles containing individuals' names and buried with the dead to identify them. Tell the students that Indiana Jones often used hieroglyphs to crack ancient codes, but he needs their help. Distribute the cartouches to students and challenge them to use the code to discover whose cartouche they own. Once they've found the owner, they can write one fact about the person they've found on the back of the cartouche.
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Optional: Take a picture of each student and attach to the cartouches.
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Collect, laminate and hang the cartouches on your bulletin board.
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Tips & Warnings
More Ways to Bring Indy to Your Classroom Why Is It Always Snakes? Use a long horizontal wall space or bulletin board to create a construction paper snake backdrop for various art projects. Create a reading center called "Readers of the Lost Ark." Add a flashlight and some fake spider webs to give it an Indy feel. Or drape the area with tent material or burlap. Other center ideas: "The Temple of Math Doom," "The Kingdom of the Crystal Computer." Create an "Indy's Travel Guide" bulletin board with maps and travel pictures you find on the Internet. Use it for geography or social studies lessons. Create "vines" from twisted brown paper bags or butcher paper and hang on bare walls for an eye-catching backdrop to display student work. For an Open House display, hang strips of brown butcher paper or green crepe paper from the ceiling to create "vines." Attach lightweight work samples to the ends. Parents can take the samples--complete with Indy's swinging vines--home. Use a treasure box as a reward system. Fill it with fake gold coins that can be "redeemed" for other treasures or privileges. Cut out fedora shapes and glue pictures of your students on them. Attach to any "adventurous" type of writing project, such as "My Best Adventure Ever." Comb garage sales, fabric stores and post-Halloween sales for cheap supplies such as old flashlights, fabric, and fake spiders. Whenever any bulletin board or decoration is a success, take a picture of it for your files.
Use extreme caution when ironing any type of paper. Use your iron's lowest setting only. If you're tempted to get into the theme by wearing your own store-bought or homemade fedora, don't allow kids to try it on because of possible lice risk.
