January Bulletin Board Ideas for Elementary School

Welcome students back with January bulletin boards.

January bulletin boards with engaging themes can help elementary school teachers welcome their students back from winter break and prompt them to dive back into learning. From the common to the obscure, January is teeming with special occasions. Bulletin boards that reflect those events serve both as classroom decorations and as enticements to learn about seasonal topics.

100 Years

The start of a new year provides an opportunity to think about the future. Allow your students to engage their imaginations and consider life a century in the future by creating a 100 Years bulletin board. Cover the board with black paper or fabric. Use string or ribbon to divide the bulletin board into four equal sections. Title the board "In 100 years ..." using pre-cut or hand-cut letters and numbers. Divide the class into four groups to discuss the future. Provide the students with art supplies, and assign each group a quadrant of the board. Ask each group to create a scene of what they think life will be like in 100 years.

Mmm, Soup

Chilly January is National Soup Month, so ask each pupil to invent a type of soup. Provide the class with cardboard or plastic-foam bowls, sheets of card stock cut into circles to fit into the bowls, and index cards. Tell the children to name the soup on the index card and write a description of what the soup contains. The students then decorate the card stock to show what the soup would look like in the bowl. Cover the bulletin board with a checkered fabric so that it resembles a tablecloth, and staple the bowls and index cards to the surface to display the original soups of the class.

Penguin Parade

Jan. 20 is National Penguin Awareness Day. As the day approaches, gather information about penguins of various types. Print enlarged photos, and write up fact sheets about each variety of the flightless birds. Feature the information on a bulletin board to encourage your class to learn more about penguins. To increase class involvement, assign groups of students to gather information about specific types of penguins to place on the bulletin board.

References

• Holiday Insight: January Holidays