Quick & Easy Tips For Your Winter Bulletin Boards

     Do you need some budget-conscious ideas to put a bit of “pop” and “pizzazz” into your winter bulletin boards? Here’s how you can add some flair to your creations. These things are usually deeply discounted after the holidays, just in time to decorate your classroom and hallway!

• Use blue, snowflake-printed wrapping paper to cover the “sky” portion of your January bulletin board when making a winter scene.
• Aluminum foil makes a great “ice rink” on the bottom portion for skaters and penguins.
  
• Use the large sheets of white batting for “snow”. Roll it out and trim so that it looks like various sized hills, then staple them so they slope up and down across the board.
• Many of the other “wintry” or foil wrapping papers make lovely backgrounds too.
• Attach plastic and flocked snowflakes with fish line and dangle them from the ceiling so that they hang just above your board at various lengths.
• Scrunch up lengths of white tissue paper to add a 3-D “snow” border.
• Twirling blue, white, and silver crepe paper and using that as your border, gives a nice pop. Loop it from the ceiling and hang large 3-dimensional tissue paper snowflakes in between.
•  
• A similar effect can be created with alternating blue and white paper chains as your students practice various colored math patterns.
• Use your students’ cut out-paper snowflakes as your border.  Make them stand out by putting them on a piece of balled-up tissue.
• Using an exact-o knife cut half of the section of your printed cardboard border and bend it outward.  For example, if your border has snowmen in a row on it, cut the right side of the snowman out and fold it over so that it has a 3-dimensional look. 
• Make a “display” above and beside your January bulletin board with paper plate snowman heads.
  
• Dangle these creations from the ceiling and stack some like a totem pole on either side.
  
•  
• If your students are making snowmen, have them apply dimensional things to their artwork, like tying on a piece of plaid ribbon instead of coloring on a scarf, or gluing on real twigs for arms and using plastic buttons instead of drawing them on.
  
• Glue the carrot nose on like a hinge, so that it pops right off the page!   
• Blue, white and silver curling ribbon added to the corners of your January bulletin board helps and sparkle and depth. Use the ribbon to hang things and then curl and leave dangling to twirl and swirl, to add interest.  
• The use of opalescent glitter on students’ wintery artwork adds a twinkling effect and is fun for children to sprinkle on wet white paint. I use it to add glitz and bling when I write my students’ names on winter projects.  
• Sheets of Styrofoam, cut with a knife, make nice “icebergs” and “igloos” to add dimensional objects to your students’ artic projects.  
• White pom poms and cotton balls, are great “snow balls” for student work too.
  


• Small Styrofoam balls sliced in half and placed in a pile next to a winter poster or on each corner are a cute snowball accent.  
• If you mix equal parts of white Elmer’s glue with non-menthol shaving cream, students have a wonderful “snow frosting” that they can add to any winter artwork! This needs 24 hours to dry, but the puffy affect is outstanding!  Have students apply with a Popsicle stick. 
• And speaking of Popsicle sticks…they make perfect fences, ice skate blades wrapped in aluminum foil, sleds, and the tiny ones are great hat brims for snowmen.  
• Finally, use student work to make the shape of a piece of winter art to decorate a large hallway wall if you don't have a bulletin board.
  
• For example, when displaying student writing, hang it in the shape of a humongous snowflake so that you have papers hung on six intersecting blue yarn lines; if they’ve made paper snow globes, arrange them in one big circular shape on top and use a huge black paper circle cut in half for the base.
  
• Have students write about snow on a white paper circle and then hang the “snowballs” in such a way that they create a huge snowman, or use their cut out-paper snowflakes in the same way.
  
• If your students make penguins, put them in a parade and display them in a row along the bottom of the wall waddling into your room.
  
• Make a "real" igloo on the wall, using recycled foam meat trays.  They are easily cut to make the rounded shape for outside pieces. 
  
• Post smaller artwork on it with tiny pins or have students write the final drafts of their winter poem somewhere on a block of "ice".
• Making winter bulletin boards can be “snow” fun with just a little imagination!