Bulletin Boards, A Tough Chore

School is back in session, but I'm home writing books. :-) I taught first grade for seven years. After our daughters were born, I did some substitute teaching, and then I spent eighteen years working as a pre-k teacher. I enjoyed teaching young children. I did not enjoy putting up bulletin boards. To me, creating bulletin boards was the toughest part of the job, but I had to do it.

I enjoy sketching and painting, but those are far different artistic disciplines. Plus bulletin boards have to be changed constantly. Some of my attempts were good, some--not so good. It was always a challenge. I liked displaying the kiddies' projects best. Below are a few of the bulletin boards I put together.

This is me about ten years ago standing in front of a rather simple bulletin board. The kiddies cut out the flowers, which was a difficult task for some of them. (One problem with pre-k is that some of the kiddies don't want to give away their flower once they've cut it out.)

Obviously, the class was working on the sound of the letter R. I liked the bright colors in the rainbows. The letters were made with sponge stamps.

I like snowflakes. I made paper snowflakes. The kiddies played with blue fingerpaint. When they were done sliding their fingers around, I dropped one of my paper snowflakes on their fingerpaint. Then I placed another sheet of paper over that. Voila! A print! This was fun. :-)

I put heart-shaped paper into a tray, added paint and marbles. The kiddies rolled the marbles around in the tray. They loved doing that. Some were a bit too enthusiastic and paint-covered marbles went rolling across the floor!

Teaching young children was exhausting but I got a huge dose of happy smiles every day. My arms got plenty of exercise tacking up those bulletin boards. :-)