Art Gallery

I recently came across this blog post over at Budget Wise Home on how to make an art gallery that can easily be changed on a regular basis without ruining your walls. As a teacher, I'm always on the lookout for new ideas to incorporate into my classroom, especially if those ideas make my job just that much easier.

One of the many bulletin boards in my class is dedicated as an Art Gallery to showcase the children's projects. Sadly, the bulletin boards in my class are as hard as stone (they really should be replaced - hint hint), so using pins is out of the question (I've lost count of how many push pins I've snapped and how many fingernails I've broken). So I've used blue tack instead, but that rips the backing paper or the children's work when it comes down.

Imagine my glee when I came across this idea to use painted baking sheets and magnets to mount artwork easily and painlessly! I like to be able to change up the gallery work on a regular basis to keep the children interested, plus they love seeing their work on the wall.

After a weekend of painting baking sheets, a little trial and error with the mounting process, voila! A brand new Art Gallery.





Tip: I mounted the baking sheets with sticky glue dots to begin with, but they fell down. I reinforced the baking sheets with sticky-backed velcro. Worked perfectly.

Scrapbook Display

I recently came across a teaching blog written by teaching consultant Alistair Bryce-Clegg called ABC Does.... I have found it to be quite inspiring in my Nursery endeavors. In a recent post, Alistair talks about using a scrapbook approach to doing displays. They include photos of the children their comments and dialogue, teacher input, or any other products created by the children to show the process of their learning. I decided to take this idea on board with my class. We have been learning about dinosaurs, and the kids have shown an interest in volcanoes. This display shows the process of the children making volcanoes and other interests the stemmed from that.