January Bulletin Board Ideas

It's a new year, the holiday break is over and the second half of the school year is beginning. The Christmas bulletin boards are coming down and it's time for a new January bulletin board.

If you're looking for a kid-appealing bulletin board theme for January, try penguins. Penguins are perfect for a winter bulletin board because they remind of us cold weather and snowy places.

Recent kid's movies and television shows like "Happy Feet," "March of the Penguins," "Surf's Up," and the "Penguins of Madagascar," have further popularized penguins.

Also, did you know that January 20 is Penguin Awareness Day?

There are a variety of ways that you can incorporate penguins into a bulletin board. The final product will be quite dapper, after all penguins seem to be wearing their New Year's tuxedos but each of the bulletin board ideas offers learning during the process.

Penguin Poetry

One option for a penguin bulletin board is to allow each student to create a penguin and write a poem using all words with the letter P.

Some examples of P is for Penguin poems from students:

Percy Penguin prefers pansies.

Petunia Penguin prances prettily.

Prissy Penguin picks purple plums.

Based on their poem, each student can personalize their penguins with details from a bouquet of pansies to dancing shoes.

Penguin Book Reports

The white middle sections of penguin crafts are the perfect place to show off a short book review. Students can add the title to a hat or bow tie and write "by" and "the author's name" on the feet of the penguin.

Penguin Trivia for Penguin Awareness Day

Penguin Awareness is celebrated on January 20. Students can research fun facts about penguins and write them on the white bellies of penguin crafts. The students will be learning more about penguins while they are researching and will continue to learn more while they read other student's fun facts about penguins.

World Map of Places to find Penguins

Many students may have only seen penguins on movie or television screens or else in zoos. Penguins live in Antarctica, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Peru and the Falkland Islands as well as the Galapagos Islands.

Students could create a world map bulletin board that highlights the places that penguins live as well unique characteristics of penguin species that live in each area.

To help teachers get started, here are some resources on the web.

Kidszone.com has some fun penguin facts and penguin photos.

DLTK.com also has some printable coloring pages of realistic penguins.

PrintActivities.com also has dozens of printable penguin coloring pages that are helpful silhouettes for creating penguin bulletin boards.

Sources:

Personal teaching experience

http://www.holidayinsights.com/other/penguinawareness.htm

http://www.coloring.ws/penguins1.htm

http://www.kidzone.ws/animals/penguins/index.htm

http://www.printactivities.com/ColoringPages/Penguins/Penguin-Coloring-Pages.html