While there seems to be a plethora of decoration ideas for the early childhood classroom, most middle and high school teachers find themselves up to their own devices. Well, here's an idea that we think will be a hit in any secondary classroom! Since you can't pull most middle and high school students away from their phones and social media sites, why not join them and add a bit of the same spirit in the classroom? This bulletin board display takes a traditional {boring!} weekly schedule and turns it into a fun Facebook themed classroom planner that your students are sure to love!

Facebook Schedule Bulletin Board

• Background: Cover the entire bulletin board with white background paper, adding a blue strip at the top.
• Title: In the top left corner (on the blue strip) add a subject heading using white bulletin board lettering. The top right corner is reserved for your room number. You'll also need to create a page title (i.e. "Mrs. Nelson's Class Schedule", etc.) to go on the white background.
• Border: None needed.
• Decoration: Reconstruct the elements of a real Facebook page... The Profile Picture. Add a picture of yourself in the top left part of the page (under the blue bar).Recent Photo Bar. The new Facebook profile design displays several recent photos. Add photos of the classroom, students, activities, etc. to show students what classroom life is like. These photos can be rotated throughout the year.Facebook Friends. In this case you'll be labeling your space "Students" instead of "Friends" - adding a photo of each of your students and penning their name next to it.Facebook Wall. The Facebook wall is used for communications between friends. Here, you'll use the space to communicate the weekly schedule with your students. Consider creating recognizable icons for homework, quizzes, exams, class projects, activities, etc. In this way, students will be able to visually discriminate between each entry (as well as its relative importance) with just a glance at the board. It might be a good idea to construct this display around a white board or dry erase poster so that it's easy to change the agenda each week, but you could also use word processing software or pen the assignments onto pieces of paper to attach to the board as well. The icons could be attached to the board using magnets or Velcro strips.

This, of course, is just a computer generated "snapshot" of the board. You might need to tweak it in order to fit the theme to your classroom space (i.e. your student's pictures as well as the recent photo section will likely be smaller, etc.). Overall, the theme is the important part and we think it will go a long way to making the classroom an inviting place to learn for older students!