Category: Bulletin Boards (Page 2 of 5)

At the beginning of the school year, we pass around a chapel sign-up sheet. I want to fill in LOTS of spaces, but I have to wait for everyone else to have their turn, and then I can fill in extras. I was super-excited when the sheet came to me this year, because the first chapel of Advent was open. Woo hoo! I’m talking about Advent today in chapel!

We are still having chapel outside, so I can’t light an Advent wreath. When I was chatting with Lauren the other day about school stuff, she happened to mention those paper Advent wreaths made out of hands. I knew what I had to do:

It’s a banquet table! I’ll open the legs, then lay it on its side. Everyone will be able to see it because it’s HUGE! 🙂

I can officially get ready for school now. I finished my bulletin board.

For the last three years, I have been using the Bible verse for Lutheran Schools Week. This year, it is Matthew 20:28. I’m glad that it’s a Gospel verse. I like Gospel bulletin boards better than Law ones.

I focused on the “gave his life as a ransom for many” part. And I slanted it up and to the right. I read somewhere that a slanted line that goes from low left to high right is supposed to convey a positive feeling to the viewer.

The left half of the bulletin board is blank so I can hang student work during the course of the year.

School starts tomorrow. We have extra breaks during the school year, and the regular breaks that other schools have are longer for us. It’s nice to have those times off, but we pay for them with a shorter summer.

I’ve been back in my classroom for more than a week now. My work started slowly, but I’ve been getting better as I’ve gone along. My room was ready yesterday. Today is for getting papers and handouts ready. I’m also making lists of things I want to say on the first day.

Of course, part of my classroom preparation has been putting up a new bulletin board. My school doesn’t have a Bible verse for each year. I should suggest that. Instead, I looked for this year’s Lutheran Schools Week verse. It’s 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24. Here’s my take:

It was another work day at school yesterday. I got my bulletin board done. I want to use the Getty’s “By Faith” in chapel this year and showed it to our pastor. He likes it and to go along with it, has decided that we are using Hebrews 12:1 and 2 for our Bible verse of the year. To make it easier for the little kids to remember, he pulled out three phrases: “Surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, let us run the race, fixing our eyes on Jesus”

For my bulletin board, I used a technique I’ve used before: copying pictures from an old yearbook. In this case, its a yearbook from 2006/2007 – ten years ago. It’s my “cloud of witnesses” – students who have attended the school in the past. I’ll of course talk about the current student body being a cloud of witnesses too.

I traced the running man from a projection. It’s magic marker dots.

The other boards I worked with yesterday were the white boards I got off of Craigslist. I pulled off my co-worker Kayla’s old chalk boards (which were painted sheets of metal), drilled new holes, and screwed in the white boards. It was made much easier by the fact that there was a ledge under the old black boards that held the white boards while I drilled and screwed.

So beautiful and so much brighter. I forgot to take a ‘before’ picture.

We had our staff retreat day on Tuesday. This year, we met at the pastor’s house, and he led us through various team activities. One of our exercises was to determine a Bible verse that will be our theme for the year. We chose Isaiah 40:31a “but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles”

Since I had the theme verse for the year, I could do my bulletin board. I actually have done this verse before. I looked at the design here at Bradaptation so I wouldn’t duplicate it. As I was looking at old bulletin board designs, I noticed that they were more complex than what I’ve done at my new school. I think my goal has changed. I want to teach the verse, so my designs are simpler and the verse is more prominent.

HERE is the old design for Isaiah 40:31, and here is the new one:

Poor Richard font. I thought it looked solid and communicated strength.

I used the projector to trace and color the wings,and the shield is traced from a wall hanging that Debbie gave me. Thanks, Debbie!

Now that the bulletin board is done, I can do the rest of the room. I will have to finish today, because there is a new student orientation tomorrow. Yikes! There’s nothing like a deadline to help you get things done!