Before the start of every school year, I find myself excited to map out my next classroom theme and design new "decor" to fill the space. Given that my space is significantly smaller than an average classroom, it's important for me to get creative with my design. With everything I add, I ask myself, "what's the purpose?" Of course, I allow myself to respond with, "because it's cute," on occasion, but overall, I try to ensure that the space is functional for my students.
This year, I wanted all of my bulletin boards to be interactive and have a specific purpose that would allow me to target multiple learning objectives. I wanted to provide my students with a variety of visuals to support their learning during therapy sessions.
The first board targets a combination of language and articulation skills. The top half of the board has my most frequently targeted sounds with visuals, prompts for placement of articulators and word lists. Having the visuals and lists on a binder rings, allows me to easily use them during my sessions. On the bottom half of the board, I displayed my figurative language posters. I love the these posters include a visual representation and examples.
The next board is for curriculum vocabulary. Anytime I can use vocabulary or materials from the classroom, I do it! Increasing exposure to the curriculum vocabulary is extremely beneficial for my students. For each unit, I clips the vocabulary words on the board for each grade level. For my language students, we review the words and I will incorporate the words into my lessons. For my articulation students, I will have students circle the words with their target sounds and place their initials to the side of the word. We frequently revisit the board throughout the unit.
The final board is a weekly, interactive bulletin board. I currently have four target areas that multiple students are working on mastering. Each target area has a student-friendly poster that has a visual representation of the skill. Every week, I will change the prompt and review it with my students. The prompts are easily accessible in pockets at the bottom of the board.
In order to maintain consistency with my visuals, I also print a smaller set of the posters and put them on a binder ring for easy reference at my therapy table.
Looking for more ideas to create functional and interactive bulletin boards? Check out this blog post from The Dabbling Speechie. I can't wait to see the boards you create!
