Under Construction

 It's been a few years since I shared any classroom decorations. In that time, we have gone through a global pandemic; I've changed schools, and a new lab is supposed to be under construction. For the 2022-2023 school year, I decided to embrace the construction and make my theme construction since I was told there would be active construction around me. Although that didn't actually happen, I did have a simple construction theme that prepared us for the year ahead.

Many changes occurred during the 2022-2023 year from moving to a small room without access to running water or safety equipment. When you're in a construction zone, often you have to rethink the activities you would normally do. It forces creativity to try new methods. Hopefully, for the 2023-2024 school year, we will have a brand new lab shortly into the school year and the physical construction zone will only become a mind construction zone. 

My skeleton wore construction PPE throughout the year.

My bulletin board was meant to look like a blueprint for the mind. The reactions that I got from students when it clicked for them was great!

I always have class rules posted in some form. Since I was limited on decorations I chose to also make them look like a blue print. I actually drew this on the back of another poster. I can remove the sharpies with rubbing alcohol if I need a blank slate again.

Atomic World

Well... I did not keep up with these posts over the last few years. Atomic World has been built and torn down, and I've been through at least three other classroom themes.

Welcome to Atomic World! It's dynamic.

When you first enter the park, to the left is the Ferrous Wheel and It's a Particle World a dark ride that takes the rider through the history of the atomic model. The Ferrous Wheel was made out of a small hula hoop, pipe cleaners, and a Dunkin Donuts cup top with duct tape.

             

To the right is Archimedes' Falls, a water ride that illustrates the story of Archimedes' discovery of differences in atomic density. It was made from paper originally, but later in the year it was refreshed and the water was made from a blue bed sheet.

                  

            

Every theme park must have thrill rides. In Atomic World, there is the traditional wooden coaster called The Sound Wave. Guests journey through the world on a sound wave having a wild ride. This was drawn and colored by hand.

The next ride found in Atomic World is Terminal Velocity. It is drop ride. For this ride, I took four Christmas paper tubes and covered them with duct tape. I also took army men to create passengers for the ride. For a fun little joke, I stuck one of the army men to the wall like it had shot out of the ride with a speech bubble saying "Gravityyyy!" Students really enjoyed this little detail.

All theme parks have a nightly fireworks display and so does Atomic World. This was my A test board which said, "Exploding with A's!" It was easy to make with black bulletin board paper and glitter glue pens.

As the school year went on, we add another attraction to Atomic World. This time is was a show in the Mendeleev Theater called "The Amazing Elements". This corresponded with a project that I assigned my students where they had to pick a compound and draw a cartoon representation of them that showed their characteristics. I created an example with sodium fluoride. My student really got into this project and it was neat to see them add to my classroom theme decorations.

 
 

Coming Soon--Atomic World

The first step to creating interesting classroom decorations is an idea. In my last post, I discussed how I came to the idea of creating a theme park in my classroom. From there, I had to decide what attractions this park would have. Of course, each of them alluded to a scientist or scientific principle.

As I planned out my theme park, I thought about the different types of attractions that are commonly found like roller coasters, flume rides, drop towers, shows, and fireworks. Before deciding how each of these types would look, I first created names for them. My roller coaster would be named "The Soundwave" since roller coasters have the look of periodic motion. The flume ride would be "Archimedes' Falls" and the drop tower would become "Terminal Velocity." Instead of Disney's "It's a Small World," I created "It's a Particle World".

Besides brainstorming on paper, I also went straight to Pintrest and my favorite search engine to see what I could find. I had once pinned, as a joke, a ferrous wheel.  This was the first ride that would fill my theme park that had a blueprint. I knew I needed to make a a circle out of paper or maybe a pool noodle. At some point in the summer, I found a small hula hoop on sale at Michael's craft store. I knew then that I could use this to make my ferrous wheel. I already had black pipe cleaners at home and decided to save the top off of a drink from Dunkin Donuts to use for the center wheel. I covered the lid with black duct tape to quickly change its color.

"The Soundwave," which was meant to look like a more traditional wooden roller coaster, was the first to be made. I searched through many images to find a roller coaster shape that I thought would work. When I found the perfect one, I emailed myself the image and used the projector at work to trace the image onto long white craft paper. For the next four days, any down time I had while watching TV,  I colored the roller coaster using blue Sharpies. I went through at least three Sharpies to complete the whole coaster. Because the Sharpies began to run out of ink at different intervals throughout the process, there were patches of darker blue and lighter blue. When the project was completed, these looked like shadows and gave depth to the image. After coloring the basic roller coaster grid, I then added a few cars full of people. On the cars, I used silver glitter pens to create a sound wave design.

And so the construction of Atomic World began and will continue in the next post.

Where to begin?

Last year as the school year came to a close, I began to clean and pack during break times. While doing this, I came across some materials left over from the previous teacher that I had not yet found after three years being in the classroom. The Air Force had produced this packet of information which included a booklet with lab instructions and three posters all dealing with the scientific principles behind flight. When I opened the posters and read them, I audibly laughed as did the students who were helping me clean. We laughed, not because the information was childish or outdated, but rather the overt corniness of them. Now don't get me wrong. I'm all about making the corny pun, but these just went too far. The third one is my favorite. Also, not only were they English on one side; they were also written in Spanish on the other side.

Although we laughed at these, it got us thinking. I told my students that it would be fun to include these in a classroom theme somehow. This is where our creative journey started.

First, it was "Oh, we could do a space theme." I didn't care much for that because I don't teach earth space science, and, although I could relate it to my subjects, I wasn't sold on that idea.

As we continued to throw out ideas while cleaning, one of the students mentioned something about hot air balloons and other flying objects besides just airplanes, rockets, and shuttles. We even thought of a way to make little hot air balloons to hang from the ceiling using paper lanterns, twine, and little baskets. From there we thought, well,  where are places that you might see hot air balloons. Carnivals. Yes, you might see them at a carnival or fair. I liked this idea since all of the rides at a fair or carnival work because of physics principles. We would be studying basic physics the following year.

I was then concerned that going the fair or carnival route might get too childish. There really should be a balance when it comes to classroom decorations. Fun, informative, but not too childish. It was based on this that I developed the idea of making a science theme/amusement park. Many amusement parks have fair type rides, and ,at one time, maybe even had hot air balloons. My helpers liked that idea as well and agreed it would be more age appropriate for them.

It was here that the plans for building Atomic World began.

Avengers Assemble! Up and Atom!

Superheroes have taken over our culture and are definitely a topic that high schoolers identify with. A few years ago, I decided that superheroes would be a fun theme to decorate my classroom. Superhero stories  have a basis is science somehow. Bruce Banner is a scientist. Tony Stark an inventor/genius. Spiderman was bit by a modified spider, and the list goes on and on. So many possibilities!

As always, I perused Pinterest for ideas. Luckily, because superheroes are so popular, there were many blog posts and pins with ideas; however, many were geared towards younger students. At some point, however, I had pinned a t-shirt that took the Avengers made them into Element Avengers.

http://wirdou.com/2012/08/06/chemical-avengers-assemble/

I thought, "Wow! If I could make these into door decorations, that would be great." I traced them onto different colors of  poster board and construction paper which is much faster than coloring every detail. I cut them out  and then pieced them together. The final details were added by hand. After laminating them, I put attached magnets to the back and hung them to my metal classroom door.

These Chemical Avengers were the basis for the rest of my classroom decorations. I decided to create an "A" test board. I used the "A" from the Avengers symbol. The board said "A's Assemble." For border, I purchased Avengers duct tape and used a doubled-up blue table cloth for the background. To make the tests really pop, I used red and yellow construction paper.

As all teachers know, it is important to have inspirational and motivating posters for your classroom. Here Pinterest was a help again, as I had been pinning many motivational sayings for years. Here was the chance to use them. I created my own posters using pictures and adding text to them. I tried to match the quote with the character and back story of the superhero.

A popular meme is the Credible Hulk. I recreated it as a poster by using my projector and tracing the outline in pencil and then going over the details with sharpie.

Lastly, I created a city scape using black bulletin board paper and masking tape to create the lighted windows. Because my room tends to get humid, the masking tape peeled off by the next day. I re-stuck it and laminated the cityscape which fixed the problem. The cityscape added to the ambiance of the room, and it also served as the backdrop for a class vs. class contest.



A New Chapter as the Year Comes to a Close

I have considered starting a blog for a while. What better time than at the brink of summer! As a high school science teacher, it is very difficult to find creative decorations that will appeal to teenagers but also relate to my subject matter. This is the plight of the secondary teacher. Elementary teachers have so many resources to decorate their classrooms. I mean school supply stores are almost completely geared to the younger age groups. It's just strange to me to hang happy little animals or apples around my room. Cutesy is fine, but I believe that classroom decorations should be intriguing and thought-provoking.

Every summer, I begin to plan my new classroom decorations. Since I work at a smaller school and will see many of the same students the following year, I don't want to use the same decorations from year to year. Many hours are spent poring over Pintrest searching for something creative and interesting. Still there is not much-- even on the wonderful worldwide web. Luckily, I enjoy using the minimal artistic talent that I possess. It is therapeutic to sit and ponder for hours on end what I could turn into a classroom theme. The last two summers, I really put my thinking cap on and, not only created bulletin boards, but other wall decorations to deck out my classroom. Join me on my journey as I ponder the possibilities for next year's theme.