When you’re brainstorming ideas for your class bulletin board, or boards, for March and St. Patrick’s Day, a few concepts probably come to mind. You’ve got the traditional, legendary rainbow with a pot of gold at the end of it, leprechaun cutouts and anything with lots of green. If you’re looking for that one-of-a-kind feel, while they’re fun themes, they may not give your class what you’re looking for. Instead of decorating your St. Patrick’s Day bulletin board with traditional ideas and symbols this year, why not think outside the box and try something that’s fun and original while being educational, too? Here are a few ideas to get you started…
* Green graphs – Have your class conduct a simple survey based on the color green. Have each child fill out a questionnaire asking for their favorite green things such as food, animal, car, character, plant or shade of green. Then have your children give their parents the same questionnaire. Create a bar graph to illustrate the results of your survey results and then display it on your bulletin board.
* Green eggs and ham – Come up with recipes that incorporate green into the dish. For example, Dr. Seuss’ birthday is March 2nd,; this would be a great opportunity to make something like green eggs and ham, green pancakes or a dish with green vegetables such as spinach. Take a picture of your students and their green dishes and display it on the bulletin board. Adding green food coloring to a more traditional recipe can add a fun St. Patrick’s Day twist to a classic recipe.
* Leprechaun puppets – Use paper bags, old socks or paper and Popsicle sticks to make leprechaun puppets. Display them on your bulletin board.
* Leprechaun puzzles – Color a St. Patrick’s Day picture on sturdy paper and then cut it into puzzle shapes. Make a large puzzle to use as the background on your bulletin board.
* A St. Patrick’s Day story – Ask each of your children to create part of a Leprechaun story that you can then piece together to make into one silly tale. Have them illustrate their one-of-a-kind book and display the illustrations, along with the story on your bulletin board.
* St. Patrick’s story – Assign your older students readings about St. Patrick’s Day and who St. Patrick is. Challenge them to find and display historically accurate drawings of what the first St. Patrick’s day might have looked like.
* Downloads – If you don’t have stationary or ready drawn St. Patrick’s Day characters, there are plenty of free downloads and activities online.
* Bingo – Create bingo boards or have the kids fill in the bingo board squares with illustrations they draw of the St. Patrick’s Day theme then play the game as a class. Display your bingo boards on your bulletin board when you are done with the game.
* Create a song – Work with your class to come up with a unique St. Patrick’s Day song. You can have the song tell a story or just focus on learning about rhyming words. Teach the children some fundamentals about how to draw musical notes, display a portion of your special St. Patrick’s Day song on your bulletin board. See if you can play the new song on traditional instruments or make your own instruments by recycling old or used materials. Take the opportunity to teach your class about how to create a poem by using rhyming words and encourage each student to come up with a song of their own using a poem that they have written.