Featuring colorful neck ties for Father's Day, this fun bulletin board featured by second grade teacher Vicky Moore at her classroom site, Mrs. Moore's Busy Bees, offers a great "pattern" for creating an interactive spring display. Along with its cute design, the ability to tailor the mainpulatives and concepts to meet the learning needs of your classroom make the possibilities for this bulletin board positively endless!

Choosing a Manipulative

With Father's Day in mind, the original creator decided to use neck ties, but you might also consider using t-shirts, swimsuits/swim trunks, or flip flops for a generic spring/summer theme. Since Mother's Day is also celebrated in spring, you might use aprons, oven mitts, gardening gloves, or floppy straw hats to add a 'womanly' flair. That's what makes this board so fantastic. You can put it up at the beginning of spring and, with simple changes, can tailor it to suit the various holidays that come along.

Choosing a Concept

• Patterning. Create solid color, or even patterned manipulatives from scrapbook or crafting paper, inviting your student to clip them onto the clothesline using various simple and complex patterning sequences - ABAB, ABCABC, AABAAB, ABBABB, AABBAABB, and ABCDABCD.
• Sequencing. Using a story you've been studying or a scientific cycle, paste a picture or a short description of each main event/step and invite your students to place these in the correct sequence. For example, when studying the life cycle of a butterfly, script or find a picture of eggs, a caterpillar, a chrysalis, and a butterfly {these are obviously very simplistic, but you get the gist}.
• Counting or Alphabet Practice. Script a number or letter onto each manipulative, inviting your students to clip them in the correct order.
• Vocabulary Review. Script focus vocabulary words onto each manipulative providing students with short descriptions/definitions to match to the appropriate word.
• Simple Math Problems. Script a practice math problem onto each manipulative inviting students to complete/write their answers on a supplemental worksheet or match answer cards to each problem.

As you can see, the possibilities are endless!

Spring Interactive Bulletin Board

• Background: Cover the entire board with blue bulletin board paper, adding a strip of green to the bottom third to look like grass.
• Title: Title will vary depending upon the holiday/concept.
• Border: Spring themed bulletin board border.
• Decoration: 1) The Clothesline. Cut a recycled wrapping paper roll in half, painting both sections with brown craft paint and, when dry, punching a hole through one end of each. Mount the paper rolls to the bulletin board using craft glue and push pins {on the inside of the tubes} to anchor them in place on opposite ends of the display. Measure and string a piece of yarn between the two "poles", threading the ends through the pre-punched holes and tying them in a knot. For visual interest, leave some slack in the string to create a curved look. 2) The Manipulatives. Create manipulatives {neck ties, flip flops, t-shirts, etc.} from construction paper or 'lightweight' scrapbook paper. The goal is to keep the manipulatives as light as possible. If making the display interactive, write or paste the appropriate information to each, then clip the manipulatives to the "clothesline" using wooden or plastic clothespins. 3) The Finishing Touches. Create several cloud shapes from white construction paper or background paper. Add several construction paper birds, butterflies, and flowers to the scene.

Do you attempt to incorporate interactive bulletin boards into your classroom? We'd love to know how, so be sure to leave us a comment below!