Katie Morris, elementary art teacher and creator of the blog Adventures of an Art Teacher, designed this gorgeous bulletin board that can be used in any classroom, for any age group, year round (...now that's the holy grail of bulletin boards!). Surprisingly, the display is quite simple to complete and brings with it a charming message: it takes all kinds to fill a box of crayons and, just like the crayons, each student's unique qualities are essential to the classroom and the community.

The Poem

Written by Shane DeRolf and later published in the children's story The Crayon Box That Talked, the featured poem celebrates the creation of harmony through diversity - perfect for a unit on peace, tolerance, and diversity!

We could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names.

All are different colors, but they all have to learn to live in the same box.

A Lesson From Crayons Display

• Background: Instead of messing with background paper, Morris decided to paint the actual bulletin board with leftover craft paint and added detailing, shadowing, etc. with crayons. For those less 'artsy', consider papering the board the traditional way with orange bulletin board paper.
• Title: Use DeRolf's poem. Because there were too many letters, Morris printed the poem onto computer paper and used different fonts to jazz it up.
• Border: Brightly patterned bulletin board trimmer.
• Decoration: Create crayons by free-handing them onto 12 x 18 pieces of construction paper or finding a black and white clip art crayon to enlarge and trace.