Classroom Displays

Classroom Displays is interesting blog with lots of displays, some of which are appropriate to Year Six. But any website that is passionate about displays is good in my book!!

Animal Adaptations display

As part of our science unit on Animal Adaptations the children made paper mache animals and researched to find out how they are adapted to their environment. The practical aspect brought this unit alive and the research they completed was excellent as a result.

Over the next year I will be buying lots of stuffed animals to avoid the long process of making them. The display will be just as effective!

Ice Cream Display

This is a display that I should have put up some time ago when we visited an ice cream factory in Crewe.

We held an ice cream day and this display was the cumlination of the day's work. It includes ice cream haikus, ideas for our own ice cream designs, data handling results of our ice cream favourites and some history of the factory.

Class Displays.co.uk

I recently contibuted some photos to Steven Moore's Class Displays.co.uk website which shows photographs of displays in each subject and in each year group. It's a very useful site and I have used to gain ideas for a French display which I'm going in to school to set up tomorrow. The site is well worth a look! Just think what could happen if every teacher sent in just one photo...

Masks

One of our fun art projects for after SATs is to make mod roc masks. The masks combine sculpting skills with careful painting. They look great and are a nice thing for the children to keep at the end of the year.

I've just noticed that a mask at the top of the picture has slipped! It's not supposed to look so wonky!

Book Display

I wanted a book display for the library part of our new Multimedia Suite.

This was the ideal project for after SATs. It was creative whilst not being too mind consuming at the same time. The children were asked to produce a 3D version of a book cover. We discussed and selected the covers that we thought would look effective. The children were then given a canvas to begin their book cover. Using paper mache, felt, cotton wool and a few other bits and bobs from Hobbycraft(!) the children worked brilliantly.

The display looks brilliant!

Borrowers display

This display shows work that our two Year Sixes colloborated on over two weeks. A scenario was designed in which The Borrowers were hidden inside our school. One class played the role of the Borrowers whilst the other became the advisers. The Borrowers were guided towards a magical book in the Library. The Borrowers and children communicated through letters. We also wrote formal letters to their parents to explain where their children were, and also a newspaper report. The unit of work is brilliant to develop their children's creative skills, but also to help secure and enhance sentence structure. We worked on our use of complex sentences and ambitious vocabulary at the same time. The display features photos of the Borrowers in our school. We made clay models which the children place in position.

France display

With being ill and having such a busy term I didn't get round to putting up a display for our French visit until this week. On the display are the places we visited, photos, some questions in French and some of the blue, white and red items we purchased at Abbeville Market. The blue, white and red colours really look lively and effective in the classroom.

Display: Why do we use computers?

Here is a display I prepared in school this week. I wanted a stimulating ICT display for our new Multimedia Suite. In the end I decided to go for a display which gave all the different uses for computers! It took me ages, but I think I came up with loads!

The display will be used to help me to re-develop the new school's ICT scheme of work. So many things - important ICT skills - are missing from the QCA scheme of work. For example - blogging, Wikipedia, data logging, downloading music and flash animatings are all important developments that didn't really kick off until after the QCA schemes were written.

Wikipedia came under fire yesterday when Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, encouraged pupils to use the online encyclopaedia to research school work. The Daily Mail (11/4/2007) focused on the fact that users can edit any article and many edits have added false information. The paper might be right as some muppets do make some ridiculous additions to the site. However, Wikipedia is a wonderful resource. You could use the site with the children to identify fact and opinion. Children can prepare a page about their own school. Children could use it to research and develop a page about their town or village - to reinforce local history studies. The opportunity to share knowledge that Wikipedia provides is unique.

I will add the information and the pictures for the display to the resources section.

How to create an exciting display

I found this information in Junior Education September 2006 about how to create an exciting display:

1. Have a cross-curricular element
2. Use interesting borders and backing (see the borders available at Teacher Toolbox Ebay Shop)
3. Try unusual positioning
4. Include some interactive elements - enourage the children to 'stand up and do' rather than 'sit down and look'
5. Feature children's work
6. Be original - attempt to display unusual topics and ideas
7. Ensure your labels and titles are all big and clear

Thought there were a few good ideas here.