Thread: Room themes

These are not necessarily "new" ideas, but here is what some of the teachers are doing at my school for next year.

Under the Sea (Mine)--I have fish hanging from the ceiling and am decorating with lots of blue!
Frogs
Reptiles
Cats
Read, White and Blue
One teacher decorates with a nature theme using items she has found over time in the woods/outside
Crabs/Small ocean animals
SC History (We have a teacher who teaches SS and decorates her room with SC items since that is the main focus for the year.)

I hope this helped in some way. Maybe it will at least get you thinking a bit.

Great; just great. Go ahead and ask that question, and make me think about putting together a new room!

My new job is teaching 6, 7 and 8, in a semi-departmentalized format. So I'll have to plan the room for whole classes moving in and out, and come up with some sort of "theme" for older kids. So far, my ideas are:

The world's greatest thinkers or ideas
People who made a difference

Any suggestions there would be greatly appreciated.

My favorite theme for the younger set is gardening; it is fun to do, and a great metaphor for learning, as well.

I wonder how I could make that more "mature" for older kids?

Hmm.....

I'm going a jungle theme. We are going on a LEARNING SAFARI!!!! I even have a hat to wear the first day that looks like a safari hat!!

There are so many great themes that you can use. My personal favorite that I have seen was a first-grade classroom with a rainforest theme. The teacher even built a couple fake trees and used stuffed animals as props. A lot of the curriculum was geared toward the rainforest as well and I think a lot of the students enjoyed it.

This is one area where elementary/middle school teachers have it all over high school teachers. High school classrooms generally have posters related to the subject and those are nice enough, but they don't usually have colorful themes that are fun to look at.

These are all great ideas. Being in the Media Center, I don't do themes. However, several years ago I hired an artist to paint the dull dark hall to the Media Center to look like a castle. Wow, did she do a good job. It has knights and horses and a friendly dragon. I was very impressed when she finished and so are all the kids that see it for the first time.

I am going for a Dr. Seuss theme for the upcoming school year. I found several websites with a lot of really great resources and ways to incorporate the books into all of the subjects.

I am doing a safari theme for my kindergartners this year. I have some blow up monkeys, lions, elephants etc. that I am going to hang from the ceiling and place around the room. I think the kids will like it, and I found some safari themed alphabet and phonics curriculum that we will be using too.