Submitted by second grade teacher, Michele Nelson, of Run! Miss Nelson's Got the Camera, this back-to-school display not only provides an eye-catching decoration for the classroom, it's also a great way to help incoming students put their best foot forward in their new learning environment. Created using adorable end-of-the-year pictures of former second grade students and their handwritten advice on 'what a second grader needs to be successful', we know your new students will have a ball reading each note and gleaning little bits of wisdom from those who have tackled and 'survived' second grade! [Not to mention, isn't the word play pretty darn cute?!]

The Write Stuff

• Background: White bulletin board paper.
• Title: "The Write Stuff!" - We love how Michele set the title apart, adding a printed background to make the lettering pop! The color scheme goes really great with her bee theme, too!
• Border: Black and white bulletin board border.
• Decoration: 1) The 3D Pencil. We don't sew, so the only way we would know how to recreate this cute element is with construction paper and printed scrapbook paper! Freehand the shape or find a clip art image to enlarge and trace, creating the main part of the pencil from gold/yellow polka dot scrapbook paper, the sharpened end from tan construction paper, and the eraser from gray and pink construction paper. Once assembled, use a black permanent marker to add the lead tip and the 'ridges' on the gray eraser connector. 2) The Writing Prompts. Michele had her kiddos create 'backpack' pockets from patterned scrapbook paper {a large rounded rectangle with a medium rounded rectangle glued across the bottom half of it}, sliding their completed writing projects into the pocket. A thick piece of ribbon glued to the top of the backpack provided Michele with a way to clip the backpacks along the clothesline. Pencil accents with student names printed on them and printed pictures mounted on patterned scrapbook paper were used to identify which student had written each of the letters. [NOTE: The clothesline effect works well when displaying the prompts in a hallway setting. If you plan to add these to an actual bulletin board, you might simply opt to stick the backpack prompts directly to the board.]