Waves of Fun Bulletin Board

Decorating your classroom for the new school year is as easy as a day at the beach with our Waves of Fun bulletin board idea.

We’ll show you how to make this display (it’s so easy!) and offer a few alternatives to customize it for your classroom.

How We Did It

We started with some basic blue paper, a cardboard wave decoration and blue border trim to complete the ocean scene. Next, we taped four mini beach balls to the corners for even more ocean appeal. Self-adhesive foam letters made it easy for us to spell out “Catch the Wave to the Third Grade.”

The surfboards made a fun little craft project for our class. Using the foam surfboard shapes from a craft kit, we cut out squares to display each child’s photo. Next, we let students decorate their surfboards with sequins, chenille stems, pom-poms and other embellishments.

Make It Your Own

You can follow our instructions exactly or mix it up with these creative alternatives:

• To make your own ocean background, crinkle some transparent blue plastic wrap and staple it to the bulletin board for water, and use sheets of light blue construction paper for the sky. If you’d like to add clouds, try cotton balls.

• Instead of real beach balls on the corners, you can make your own with styrofoam balls painted to look like beach balls. You could also paint them yellow and attach cardboard or construction paper rays to create cute sun decorations.

• If you’d like to add a beach to your background, cut sand paper into a shoreline shape, and glue or tape small seashells to it for an instant fun-in-the-sun look.

After surf’s up, you can update your bulletin board with a new pirate theme.