Quick & Easy Winter Bulletin Board Ideas

• Snowflakes make for a quick and easy winter bulletin board idea Tooga/Photodisc/Getty Images

  Winter brings the idea of cold and snow and the excitement of coming celebrations. For quick and easy winter bulletin board ideas, use the symbols of the season and the holidays as well as input and assistance from students. Students' contributions to a winter-themed bulletin board focuses their interest on the bulletin board.

Snowflakes and Snowmen

• Snowflakes are a symbol of winter and make a quick and easy winter bulletin board. Have the students make paper snowflakes to decorate the bulletin board. To make this a green project, use newspaper or magazines. If you want the students to color the snowflakes, use black and white print. Or, you can use cartoon or other pages with colorful pictures or ads. Cut squares at least five or more inches on a side, depending upon how large you want the finished snowflakes. The basic snowflake has six points. You can teach the student to fold and cut. You can also have the students fold the square in half, open, fold the opposite way and do the same on the diagonal. The folds represent the six points of the snowflake. Show the students how they can make scallops around the folds in a leaf pattern and cut for unique snowflakes. Have the students include their names on their snowflakes. Tack them to the bulletin board with a winter heading and, if you like, a quote about Winter. You can also have the children make snowmen instead of snowflakes to do both for variety.

  You can find Winter quotes like the following, at Quote Garden: "In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy" (William Blake) or "Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home" (Edith Sitwell). Or, you can have the students decide on an appropriate heading for the winter bulletin board.

Holiday Catalogs

• Using the holiday catalogs most people receive during the autumn and winter seasons leading up to the holidays, cut out winter related pictures. You'll find people dressed up in jackets, hats and boots, snowmen, Christmas wreaths and trees. You'll find symbols of hope, peace and goodwill greetings. You can put together a quick and easy winter bulletin board with whatever winter theme you choose. It may be simply winter with evergreen trees and wreaths and holly. It can be the activities of winter with snowboarding, sledding, sleighing and building a snowman.

  If students are involved, have them cut out things they want to or like to do for a "Things we like to do" themed winter bulletin board. Or, you can have them dream and cut out gifts they hope to receive for Christmas for a "Christmas Wishes" winter bulletin board theme.

Student Expression

• Have the students write a short essay on "what winter means to me." Use this as an assignment in writing, grammar and spelling. Once the students have their essays written, have them decorate the edges with the symbols of winter and the holidays. Back the essays with a larger, colorful red or green paper. Tack them to the bulletin board under the essay subject "What Winter Means to Me." You can also add other symbols of winter around the essays such as snowflakes, snowmen and Christmas or evergreen trees. If the students are too young for essays, have them draw and color pictures instead for a quick and easy winter bulletin board idea.