Need some bulletin board design ideas for school? At the beginning of the year, really at any point in the year, the way that your classroom looks is always top of mind! Your classroom is what you and your students see every single day, so just as you want your house to be fabulous, you want your classroom to be fabulous too!
A bulletin board is a great place in your classroom to post great content, create a positive environment, or just share some school news.
In this post, I will discuss 10 bulletin board design ideas for school, specifically for the science classroom!
Bulletin Board Background
Before we get to the awesome ideas, we need to discuss what makes a fabulous background. Most likely, your school has roll paper that is crinkly and so aggravating to put on, but there are many other ideas!
- fadeless paper
- fabric
- burlap
- wrapping paper
- plastic tablecloths
- newspaper
- paint
- scrapbook paper
Many of the ideas are from this post by Charity from the Organized Classroom. She has great ideas!
Bulletin Board for Classroom Ideas
Now it’s time to share some bulletin board design ideas for school!
Shout-Out Wall
This is an easy idea for board decorations! All you have to do is get some letters, either by Cricut, printing, purchased, or another avenue, that spell out the word Shout-Outs.
I did this in my classroom this past year, and it added another positive element to the room.
All you have to do is get some post-its and set them somewhere close to the board.
Every time that a student or group of students do their best, help you, do something kind for others, ace a test, or something else that is positive, write this on a sticky note and either staple or pin it to the bulletin board.
Your board will be plain for a little while, but soon it will be colorful, fabulous, and your classroom will be full of positivity!
Give your students a chance to shout out other students as well.
Word Walls
Science vocabulary word walls are great for bulletin boards, well actually, anywhere in the classroom is a great place for a word wall. There are many reasons to include a word wall in your classroom.
Your walls and boards are a very important piece of the classroom, and your goal should be for the walls to speak learning and positivity.
Word walls assist with the learning portion. They provide a colorful reference to what you are learning in the classroom. Middle school students are known for their ability to get distracted very easily. Wouldn’t it be nice for them to have something productive to turn their attention to when they get distracted? Word walls!!
This particular science word wall set includes vocabulary words for each topic in middle school science.
You can also post a STEM word wall if you’d like to place that STEM emphasis in your classroom.
While You Were Gone
Another great idea is to use the board to help students that are absent get the work that they need to make-up. This also serves as a great reminder to you to pass out student work to those that were absent previously.
So, how does this work? Let’s say it’s Tuesday, and your students are going to work on a Speed, Velocity, and Acceleration cut-and-glue activity. You pass them out to your class, but you realize that two of your students are not there that day, so they will need to make this assignment up so they have a chance to practice the material too!
So, you grab the two papers, write their name on it, and pin them to the “While You Were Gone” bulletin board. In the next few days as that absent students return, they can go to the board, grab their missing work, and complete it.
If you don’t have a procedure yet for make-up work, this is a useful tool!
Here are some other ways to support students when they are absent!
Engineering Design Process
STEM is in!! If your students are not doing STEM activities embedded in your science classroom using the engineering design process yet, now is your time to shine.
This year, my school official became a STEM School of Distinction, and one of the criteria was to use EDP consistently in the classroom to provide students with critical thinking and collaboration skills.
Whether students are creating a Rube Goldberg machine during their energy unit or just having your students design a heat transfer story, this bulletin board is a great reminder to students to go through this process to make their product the best it can be!
Science/STEM in the News
This is a great bulletin board to keep yourself and your students updated on the real-world happenings in the science world. There are new discoveries happening all of the time, and it’s great to be in the know!
Get some letters that spell on STEM or Science in the News and post at the top of your bulletin board. Then, print out some articles to post! Make it cute with some colorful paper behind it or stick them in plastic sheet protectors so that you can constantly change it.
I copy and paste the information onto one page for a cleaner look.
Here are some great resources for science news:
Lab Safety Posters
Another great reminder for students, whether it’s on a bulletin board or somewhere else, is lab safety posters. If you are doing STEM activities and other lab activities, it’s crucial that your students are aware of what protocol they need to follow, especially if you are doing something such as working with chemistry topics or dissecting things!
Lab safety doesn’t have to be boring though, of course, you want to be the light in the classroom, and have some wonderful entertaining and bright posters!
These colorful posters are great to help students understand the rules of the lab, and it’s always great to have something to refer to when protocol isn’t being followed.
Student Work
Another way to add some positivity to the classroom is to post student work! Middle school students are so creative and many students go above and beyond in classroom assignments, especially if you give them the opportunity to show their creativity such as a unicellular cartoon or with a Punnett square animal project.
Posting the best of the best, or even work that you know students tried their hardest to complete, brings positivity as well as healthy competition to your classroom. Students will work harder to get their work posted on the board.
There are so many great ideas to display student work, you can post it with clothespins, create “a fridge”, put them in frames, and more!
This post from We Are Teachers has some great ideas and inspiration!
7 Habits
To keep the light shining in your classroom, it’s important to teach students positive skills. If you have never read the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, I highly suggest it!
This is also a great book to implement schoolwide to help students cope with different situations in their life and at the school. It’s great to have a common language.
For example, using the proactive/reactive language from habit 1 is beneficial when middle school students talk back after redirection. I would always ask if they were reacting proactively to the situation or reactively. Once that language is embedded into their minds, they are likely to be more aware of their actions and work to improve them.
I like to have these habits posted in my room to refer to all of the time!
You can create your own, or purchase from the 7 Habits Store.
Announcement Boards
Want another really easy bulletin board idea for your science classroom? Use it for announcements! You don’t even have to have a title on it. Just stick up some paper and border and just wait for the announcements to come to you.
Post your school schedule, school mission statement, and all other upcoming events. Are sport tryouts coming up soon? Post it. Science Olympiad competition happening soon? Post it! STEM Night next week? Post it!
You will have all those papers flow in your mailbox. IYKYK!
Photo Booth
This is fun one and a must have for when I return to the classroom. I needed a space where I could take pictures of student and staff with a great background, and I did not have it. Why not set up a cool bulletin board for that space?
Have students pose with their work, have the Teacher of the Month pose for their social media post, have students show of their latest projects, or just set some props and have fun.
There are endless possibilities for this idea.
Do you do something different on your science bulletin boards? I’d love to hear more suggestions in the comments below. Thank you for sharing!
Which bulletin board design ideas for school will you use?
Bulletin Board Design Ideas for School – More Resources
Help your students master and be engaged in science content!
[…] my classroom, I actually had a “What Did I Miss” bulletin board. This is where I placed make up work for absent students. If there was a worksheet or guided notes, […]