Check out this awesome nutcracker themed bulletin board design submitted to us by Beth Sommers! Seriously, aren't those hand-made nutcracker accents amazing?! Originally designed to keep students up-to-date with the winter happenings at their school, we think this would also make an excellent design for the classroom. Simply adapt the title and tweak the design a bit to fit your needs;

• "Tis The Season For Spectacular Work!" (use to display student artwork or projects)
• "Tis The Season For Happy Helpers!" (use to assign classroom jobs)
• "Tis The Season To Be Thoughtful!" (use to recognize and celebrate the random acts of kindness you observe in and outside the classroom)
• "Tis The Season To Count Our Blessings!" (use to display student pictures and regonize all the blessings in your class)

Here are a few more close-ups of the design;

Tis The Season!

• Background: Dark green background paper.
• Title: Tis the season... - As stated above, you can tweak the title to fit the purpose of the bulletin board.
• Border: Christmas bulletin board trimmer or complimentary solid/patterned bulletin board border.
• Decoration: 1) The Nutcrackers. We suggest finding a clip art image online and using your classroom projector system to enlarge and trace the whole shape onto white bulletin board paper and the decorative embellishments onto Christmas wrapping paper/scraps of bulletin board paper. Once traced and cut, the embellishments can then be adhered directly onto the white bulletin board paper cutout. [NOTE: If you don't have the wall space beside your display, or your purpose for the bulletin board requires more decoration on the actual board, you can certainly make these smaller!] 2) The Accents. The accents you use to decorate the board are dependent upon the way you plan to use the board. For example;
  • If using the bulletin board to display student work, you might add your students' projects to colored construction paper or patterned scrapbook paper, creating borders and more visual interest, as well as label the projects with ornament cutouts.
  • If using the display to encourage random acts of kindness, you might consider creating a large Christmas tree and adding an ornament for each act of kindness you observe or, going with the nutcracker theme, add a nutcracker to each side of the board and an empty bowl in the middle, adding a nut for each nice thing you see.
  • Etcetera!