Due to longer hours of darkness and colder temperatures in the winter months, we tend to spend little time in the sunlight, experiencing the beauty of God’s creation. This can lead to feelings of sadness and lethargy—emotions we don’t want ourselves or our students feeling when in school. But, as educators, we can take steps to chase away those negative feelings in our classrooms by creating meaningful, visually appealing learning spaces that encourage our students without taking up all our free time or draining our bank accounts.
As an elementary art teacher, I’ve been creating displays for my classroom and school hallways for years. So, I want to share some ideas that can help make creating beautiful learning spaces less intimidating. These examples can benefit educators who teach any subject area and any grade level.
A great place to start is to choose an encouraging theme as a focus for all of the displays. This year, I chose a theme inspired by street artist/muralist Kelsey Montague who, through her interactive murals, asks observers to identify what lifts them. The phrase, “What Lifts You?” led to three displays—one large (on a wall outside my classroom) and two smaller spaces (display cases) in my school. But these examples could easily be adapted to smaller classroom bulletin boards or whichever spaces you’d like to beautify.
For the larger display, I got students involved, saving me time and inspiring my students to think about uplifting aspects of their lives and ways they can encourage their classmates. First, we had class discussions about the theme. Then, I asked the students to identify one “thing” that encourages them and one act of kindness they can do to lift someone else up. Then each student created two feathers—each feather representing the identified items. As an art teacher, I had my students demonstrate an understanding of color, value, and line standards as they decorated their feathers, but any subject’s standards could be applied to the production of a display.
As they turned in their beautiful feathers, the students shared what lifted them and their acts of kindness. I began putting up a few feathers each day after school. I loved hearing my students' voices and comments as they walked to class in the morning, excited to see their feathers on display. Each time they looked at their beautiful wings, they felt pride and were reminded to uplift their classmates with acts of kindness.
I put the two smaller displays together based on this same theme, using similar colors to help maintain a cohesive design. To save money, I mostly used school-supplied materials (bulletin board paper, paints, markers, and staples). And, I added depth and interest by incorporating inexpensive items found at home or at the local dollar store to enhance these displays.
We started the new year focused on a positive, uplifting message. And, within a few weeks, I had three gorgeous, meaningful displays that enhanced the beauty of the learning space during the winter months. I feel confident that by choosing an encouraging theme, involving the students, and using free and inexpensive materials all educators (regardless of their comfort, free time, and funds) can create beautiful and meaningful installations in their schools that will brighten the space and motivate all who see them.
Christy Miller is a visual arts teacher from Northern Ohio. She fosters a love of learning through the arts by making meaningful learning connections that benefit the whole student.
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