Have you noticed that when you display your children’s artwork and projects, they beam? They are so proud of what they worked on, and love pointing it out to anyone. “I made that!” It also makes our classroom feel more homey. It’s their classroom, so it only makes sense that their work is what is hanging in the windows and on the walls. Even on the shelves! I’ll take child-made classroom decor over commercial decor any day. And, since teachers are always on a budget, we are saving money not buying all those posters and decorations! I thought I’d share some of the ways we have used the children’s work to adorn our toddler and preschool classroom.
Birthday Displays
We dedicate two birthday bulletin boards for each class’s birthdays. (One for our 2’s turning 3 and one for our 3’s turning 4.) As each birthday arrives, we remove the crown so that the birthday child can wear it and then take it home. This is a great visual for the children to see whose birthday is next.
Related post: Celebrating Birthdays in the Classroom
Kid-Made Art
Windowsills and the tops of our short shelves are the perfect areas to display 3-dimensional art! Don’t our cherry blossom trees look cute in our classroom windowsill? Our apple trees adorned the top of one of our short shelves.
Related post: How to Create an Easy Fall Apple Tree Craft
Wall Art
Rather than have teacher-made bulletin boards on our wall, I much prefer attaching child-made art. If you cannot use staplers or thumbtacks, try attaching a rope that is attached using command hooks, as we have done in many of the photo below.
Related post: Toddler Circle Art with Paper Tubes
Related post: Marble-Painted Penguins
For this activity, we created small collages for different colors of the rainbow. The children brought items from home that matched these colors and we glued them onto canvas that we had painted earlier.
Related post: Our Classroom Color Wheel
We love creating art that goes with a favorite book. We then attach the book cover to the display, too!
Related post: Fun Literacy Activity with the Love Monster Book
While learning about opposites, we made this black and white mural and then hung it on the wall.
Related post: Learning About Opposites
We displayed our black and white canvas collage at our exploration table.
Related post: Day and Night Activities
We love to hang our work in our classroom tree, as shown here.
Related post: Painting Pinecones
We’ve also combined art from different classes to make one bulletin board, such as this sunflower art. Related post: Sunflower Wall Art for Toddlers and Preschoolers
Hanging Art
We used driftwood and buttons to create hanging murals. We also love creating mobiles that relate to our themes, such as a rainbow mobile.
Related post: Hanging Toddler Rainbow Activity
Another fun rainbow window activity was filling and hanging baubles. This was part of a color sorting activity we did with our 2 year olds. Related post: Hanging Rainbow Sorting Activity We also made leaf Suncatchers to add some color to the room.
Related post: Fall Leaf Suncatchers
During the Christmas season we creating a gingerbread banner that hung in our window.
Related post: Gingerbread Art Using Golf Balls and Paint
While getting to know each other during back-to-school, we put together and displayed a friendship banner
Related post: Friendship Banner
Window Art
Creating our own colorful window art is also fun!
Related post: Colorful Toddler Tissue Paper Window Art
Related post: Colorful Toddler Tissue Paper Window Art
We like to hang our work in the hallway window, too!
Related post: Toddler Rainbow Suncatchers
During the fall we make apple suncatchers that look so colorful!
Related post: Apple Suncatchers (Free Printable Template!)
During winter, we made snowflakes to hang in our window.
Related post: Fine Motor Snowflake Art
We also made giant snowflake art to hang with those smaller snowflakes.
Related post: Simple Wooden Snowflake Craft
When spring arrived, we put our ladybugs in the window.
Related post: Ladybug Suncatchers
While learning about nocturnal animals, we made bat suncatchers.
Related post: Easy Bat Craft for the Window
Hanging from the Ceiling
Yep, take advantage of your classroom ceiling, too!
Related post: Jellyfish
Seasonal Displays
Here’s a fall wreath that our toddlers made to adorn our classroom. And here are some Valentine hearts that we displayed in the window, too.
Related post: Toddler Colorful Valentine Hearts
For St. Patrick’s Day, we made shamrocks out of heavy paper and hung them on a wire in the window.
Related post: Color-Mixing St. Patrick’s Day Craft
During our spring gardening theme we made simple flower sun catchers using petals and leaves we found on the ground.
Related post: Flower Suncatcher
While talking about thankfulness before Thanksgiving, we made a “We are Thankful” banner.
Related post: Thankful Banner for Thanksgiving
Part of our Christmas theme was making Christmas cards for our families. We made them early enough so we could first hang them in the window.
Related post: Bright and Cheerful Christmas Cards
During our Easter theme, we painted wooden eggs using a salad spinner (so fun!) and hung them on a rod in the window.
Related post: Easy Spin Art Easter Egg Activity
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