Here's an adorable winter-themed bulletin board that is sure to be a hit in your early childhood classroom! Use it during your unit on winter animals or the arctic, use it to supplement a lesson on shapes, or throw it up as adorable classroom decor - however you decide to use it, the board will brighten your classroom walls and provide your students with a positive message!

Penguin Crafts

Wren, teacher at Landmark Preschool and bulletin board idea contributor to DLTK-Teach, designed the penguin crafts to help her kiddos review ovals. In fact, the arctic creatures featured on her board - with the exception of their hair bows or bowties - are made entirely from construction paper ovals. Here are some other penguin crafts you might consider using as well:

• Ink Blot Penguins. We've featured these once before, but they're just too adorable to pass up! The trick is symmetry - students fold a piece of paper in half creating a crease and add carefully placed blobs of paint to one side of the crease. Refolding the paper, students are then asked to work the paint between the two layers of paper out as well as toward the crease. When the paper is unfolded once more, they'll be astonished to find they've created a penguin shape! {For step-by-step instructions and pictures, click here}
• Heart Penguins. Wren had her students practicing ovals, but other shapes work too! Since Valentine's Day is nearing, try creating penguins from different size hearts. {You can find an example over at DLTK-Teach!}
• Penguin Glyph. To add in more math concepts and help your students learn how to follow directions, create a penguin glyph for students to use when creating their winter creatures. {Find inspiration and examples at TeachingHeart.net and Mathwire.com!}

Our Class is Cool Display

• Background: Create a snowy landscape - covering the top two-thirds of the board with dark blue bulletin board paper and using white background paper to create snowy hills and valleys.
• Title: "Our Class is Cool!"
• Border: Snowflake trimmer.
• Decoration: 1) The Penguins. Use your students' creations! 2) The Snowflakes. Create several snowflake templates from card stock to trace onto white, ivory, and gray construction paper or find a black and white clip art image to print directly onto the paper. Cut out and arrange on the board. Consider adding glitter to the cutouts to make them pop!