Bulletin boards are a great way to bring learning and creativity together in your classroom year-round, and a Halloween bulletin board is one of our favourites! Whether you’re new to teaching or a seasoned veteran, boards are a great way to interact with students and can be used in a variety of ways: displaying student work, current material or projects, reinforcing skills with visual information, or even creating interactive activities for students. Regularly changing up bulletin boards is an easy way to introduce or reinforce materials and add visual interest to your classroom.
Table of Contents
- What Makes a Good Halloween Bulletin Board?
- Designing a Halloween Bulletin Board
- Examples of Great Halloween Bulletin Boards
What Makes a Good Halloween Bulletin Board?
A good classroom bulletin board has three primary characteristics; it serves a specific purpose, engages students with visuals, and is located in a convenient place that is readily accessible or visible to all students.
Generally, classroom bulletin boards should serve one or more of three purposes. Boards can be used as displays, information centres, or hubs for interactive activities. Each of these types of boards can incorporate Halloween themes into their purpose and visuals.
Display boards can be used to display student work, current curriculum materials, or other visuals. Students love seeing their projects displayed, and whether or not the work is Halloween-themed, you can incorporate the colours and visuals of the season into a backdrop to highlight their assignments.
Informational boards are a great way to reinforce skills or curriculum with visuals. They can be a place for students to refer when going through a classroom procedure or type of assignment or focus on presenting visuals related to a current topic of study.
Interactive activity boards provide students with self-guided activities which can be picked up or completed on the board. This could include packets for picking up or returning papers, directions for activities or even kits for creating projects.
A good Halloween bulletin board can incorporate any of a variety of seasonal colours or designs. Of course, the content will vary greatly based upon the age of the students. It’s also important to present Halloween (or any holiday) in an age-appropriate fashion that respects the cultural considerations of the student population.
Another important consideration in creating any classroom bulletin board is location. Students should be able to see and interact with the board with ease, and – in the case of an activity/interactive bulletin board – it should be placed at eye level in an area where students can easily access materials. If additional supplies are needed, a table can be placed nearby.
When you are choosing what type of board to make, consider what it is that makes Halloween, or the fall season, special for your students, and what the purpose of your board will be and design around that.
Designing a Halloween Bulletin Board
When you are designing any bulletin board, you will want to first consider the purpose of location of the board as noted above. Once that’s out of the way, we can get to the fun part – decorating!
When designing your Halloween bulletin board, you’ll want to consider how your students celebrate Halloween, based on age, interests and culture. For younger students, it might be more about dressing up or characters, candy, pumpkins or cooler weather activities, while older students might enjoy delving into the slightly “darker” side of Halloween with, for example, spooky literature or puzzles.
Colour choices can go a long way in conveying the spirit of the season, and can go beyond the classic orange and black. Consider combinations like black and grey for a spookier look, or combinations of bright purple, green, orange and black for something more festive.
Examples of Great Halloween Bulletin Boards
Inspiration for Halloween bulletin boards is everywhere, and the design possibilities are endless. You don’t have to be a crafting maven to create original, fun bulletin board designs. We’ve gathered multiple examples of some of our favourite Halloween board ideas below.
Bookish Bats by The Designer Teacher
The Bookish Bats board uses simple bat cutouts as a type of journal or sheet for students to write about their favourite books. Younger kids can assemble the bats by colouring, glueing on eyes, or other decorations.
Halloween Slime Display from Librarian on Display
The slimy designs featured in this book display are simple to create and can be used to create the same type of designs on a 2D bulletin board.
Who’s Hiding in the Pumpkin Patch from Reading with Mrs. B.’s Beehive
This terrific interactive bulletin board features simple cut out pumpkins covered with a flap to hide the contents inside. This terrific idea can be used for student photos, a guess who game, or even trivia or other questions, with answers hidden beneath.
Pumpkin Writing by Teaching with Love and Laughter
This first grade board displays students’ writing and art skills, by allowing them to create and design their own pumpkin and then complete a writing prompt about their art.
Monste-rously Fun by Differentiated Kindergarten
This bright and welcoming board just screams fun! The design is simple and could be adapted to allow students to create their own monsters, or to write or draw on them. The monsters and the banner were created with nothing but cardstock, scissors and glue.
No Bones About It by Supply Me
This display board features student made art mounted on Halloween-colored sheets of cardstock. The design could easily be adapted to science with students creating different animal skeletons or parts of animals, insects, arachnids, etc.
Knowledge: The Cure for Arachnophobia by Supply Me
Here’s another great science board that aims to spread information about one of our most commonly feared creatures, the spider! Cut out spiders frame students’ writing about the creatures and could easily be adapted to other “creepy crawlies” as part of writing, science, or match curriculum.
I Read Dead People From JYHS Library
This spooky board is perfect for older students and can be made with nothing more than dollar store skeleton parts, cardstock and paper. The 3D skeleton makes a great centerpiece which could be surrounded by student writing, facts, book titles or just about anything else your imagination can concoct!
Nightmare Before Midterms From California Casualty
This movie-themed board is such a fun way to welcome the season. The cutout pumpkins provide space for written materials such as student names, study tips, important dates or other information.
Negativity Graveyard From Hikendip
This board is simple but effective. Using only colored paper, letters and simple cutout shapes, it features tombstones engraved with the behaviours and negative thoughts that we all want our students to bury!
How Do You Boo? by Donna Wright
This colourful board could display anything from student works to rules or favorite books. The bright colours aren’t your typical orange and black, which makes it both festive and unique.
Spider Halloween by Inspired by Kindergarten
This clever board uses a spiderweb design to incorporate counting, vocabulary/writing and art in one interactive space. The small spiders on the web were created by students, using their fingerprints as the body. We love the idea of including kids in the creating process.
Spooktacular Story by Mandmevents
This traditional Halloween board features some of the season’s classics – ghosts, spooky trees, and spiderwebs. Simple to put together, this board could work well for a variety of ages. The paper ghosts can be used to display student writing, photos, art, or names.
Batty About Verbs by Teacher to the Core
This cute ELA design uses bright colors and bats to reinforce parts of speech. The creator provides a free template for the bats and other shape elements used in the board.
Witch’s Brew by Mary Ann Mulroe
This board is great inspiration for the craftier among us. Its “What’s Brewing” headline could work with lesson materials, news or student work.
Dead Poets Society by Christi Cameron
The Dead Poets society board is a fun idea for any literature unit. The cutouts are simple and the tombstones can be filled in by students or teachers. What middle schooler wouldn’t love to fill out a tombstone for a dead author?
Putting Overused Words to Rest by Michele Nelson
This clever ELA board puts its cemetery scene to good use. Younger students with limited vocabularies will love to stretch their creative writing muscles by listing overused words and possible substitutes or synonyms on tombstones.
Monster Door by the Applicious teacher
This simple door decoration is kid-created monster fun with the bonus of a writing exercise that ties into a children’s book.
Falling into Area From SupplyMe
It can be challenging to create boards for older students, which is why we love this interactive board that uses Halloween themes and colors to present an interactive lesson plan on geometry.
Tissue Paper Pumpkins by Misty & Kristy
This 3-d pumpkin design may look involved, but it’s actually a cinch to make with nothing more than orange tissue paper. Students can get in on the act by writing their names on the surrounding ghosts.
Scarytal System by Maribel Urey
What better way to teach the skeletal system than with a spooky pal? Bright colours and large, easy to read lettering make this board both visually interesting and informative.
Snazzy Spider by Cherie Farinola
This crafty idea can be adapted for door decor or bulletin boards and features gorgeous spooky student art work that requires nothing more than card stock, glitter and glue.
Spooktacular Work by Mrs. O Knows
This haunted house board is an adorably spooky way to show off students’ work. Lots of negative space means that it’s easy to adapt this design to your own purpose.
Carve Out Time for Reading by the Teacher Librarian
The perfect project for the classroom or library, the simple design uses geometric shapes to create Frankenstein’s monster and features several of Frankie’s (or your students’) favorite books.
A Tree Full of Adjectives from We Are Teachers
This teacher created a large wall tree to integrate into a curriculum about sensory poems. The tree is made of paint and paper bags and surrounded by adjectives from students’ own poems.
Fall Bulletin Board for Preschool by Play to Learn Preschool
This crafty and cute tree display isn’t just decorative, it’s a reusable activity for reviewing colors. This idea could easily be adapted to other seasons or pictures.
The best Halloween bulletin board idea is the one that you come up with and which incorporates your own teaching style and your students’ needs and interests. Creating the best bulletin boards should be fun, so get creative and enjoy!
