Fewer things will "bug" you at the start of the year when you have a fun theme in your classroom. Ants, bees, butterflies and other insects morph your room into a learning center. Check out these posts.
It Bugs Me
Posted by: adele #141613
We did a bulletin board with the bugs theme, "It Bugs Me". I asked each student what bugs them. It was expressive and fun, with a wide range of expected responses like "my brother" or " my sister," to "taking the trash can to the street on the wrong day," etc.
Job chart: "We Are Creeping for Something To Do" have a large tree with leaves. On each leaf write the jobs. On lady bugs, caterpillars, spiders, ants, and others write the students names.
"We Are All A Flutter In 2nd Grade" Have large flowers all over the wall and place butterflies and lady bugs with students names on them on the flowers.
Ladybug Theme
Posted by: BuzyBeeTeacher #57469
Just about anything can work for a classroom theme! Pick something you love. Here are some ideas for ladybugs that I came up with:
Ladybug Theme:
Welcome Board: "GREAT STUDENTS SPOTTED!" Put each student's name on a little leaf and put a giant ladybug in the center.
Jobs: "Busy Bugs!" Put a cardboard leaf with a clothespin glued to it and write the job on the leaf. Give each student a bug with their name and rotate jobs as needed.
Behavior Board: If you use a card pulling system in a pocket chart, you could customize it by cutting out five leaves for each student and numbering them 1-5. Students could change their leaf as a consequence.
Individual behavior management: Make small desk incentive charts for students with clip art. Give them a ladybug with no spots (use ...
BULLETIN BOARDS: Good work: "Bee-utiful Work" with bees;
OR "Works that Glows!" with little lightning bugs
Daily Info: "The Buzz" or "Look What's Buzzing"
Jobs: "Worker Bees" or "Classroom Jobhive" with a big beehive with jobs on it.
Welcome Board: "Look who's buzzing into ___'s room!"
Material: Find colorful bug fabric to use as backgrounds.
*READING CORNER: Put up green paper around the corner, and glue large silk leaves all over it. Glue tiny plastic bugs around. Put a couple of plants. "Buzz on in to read a good book!"
*WREATH: I made a little wreath for the door that said "BEE YOUR BEST!" and I glued plastic bugs all over it.
*MAGNETS: I hot-glued big plastic bugs to clothespins and used big magnets. These were very handy for the boards t...
I like the busy bugs. Special helper (star of the week): King/queen Bee attendance/cafeteria order carrier: Monarch (because they navigate so for) Class Librarian: Book worm
What types of jobs do you have in the class?
Good work board: Here's the Buzz We Carry our Own (with di cuts of ants holding each persons work; maybe the kids names on the ant)
cursive bugs
Posted by: Chris #70304
This isn't really a practice, but more of a fun reward for finishing the alphabet. Just last week we created letter bugs. The students created bug pictures out of as many cursive letters as they could. For example, I drew a lowercase "a" on the board. Then I turned it into a butterfly by rounding out the rest of the tail of the letter, adding a head and antennea, and creating a body. Some of the kids got very creative and ended up using many letters to create one large bug. O for the head, a for the body, c's for the eyes, etc. They turned out really cute.
love bugs
Posted by: grade two rocks #73618
I like to make love bugs with my class - they make a large red heart out of construction paper and then decorate it with googly eyes and black construction paper- ladybug style spots (shaped liek hearts), legs (folded like fans if they want to make them jump out) and antennae, they look so cute!
lunch bugs
Posted by: K-Jeanne #140715
I take small bug pictures and add a magnetic strip on the back. Students move them to either hot/cold lunch- I have to have a daily lunch count. I ask my students, "Did you move your lunch bug?"
I am doing a bug theme also; ladybugs, ants, butterflies, caterpillars, and bees.
I'm calling the newsletter "The Weekly Buzz".
For behavior, I'm doing A Garden of Good Behavior. I am putting up a flower garden bulletin board. As children earn good behavior, a bug cutout with their name is added to the garden. At the end of a specified amount of time, kids with a certain amount of bugs in the garden get an award.
I have the Cricut machine and I used the cartridge Walk in My Garden a lot. You can tie flowers into this theme so easily. And the cartridge made some cute bug cutouts. My room is going to look great. I can't wait to see it all come together.
Get an entomologist to come share. Contact a local university, or a nearby farming co-op or seed business. For example, we have Pioneer seeds and Becks Hybrids. It's free and the kids LOVE it.
When using bugs as your theme, you can make a helper board entitled, "Worker Ants". You could have a large ant mound with children's names on ants next to jobs. Or you could use bees and call it "Worker Bees".
