[txdenise]

I have some Rainforest bulletin board sets, but was looking for ideas to change the look of the entire room to Rainforest. Any suggestions? I am not much of a creative one, but would like to make the room look really cool. I teach 5th/6th grade. I oversee the special ed department and have about 12 students per day visiting for various reasons, but do not have a set class in my room.

[nythirdcc]

Go to WalMart and buy some of the brown paper that is over in the area where they sell the boxes, packing tape and bubble wrap. Take several rolls. Then unroll it and twist is tightly make "vines". Hang these from your ceiling by draping them and attaching them in various spots. Then hang monkeys, parrots, etc from the branches along with some fake greenery. I'd also see if you can't find some inexpensive plants to sit around your room to form a jungle type atomosphere!
Good luck!

[kristen123]

One year I did this theme in my 3rd grade classroom. I made a huge tree at the entrance of our classroom. THe trunk of the tree was the entrance into our jungle. My door was covered with brown paper and I decorated the tree with crumpled green tissue paper and green leaf cut-outs. I also placed a few pictures of animals that would live in the tree (monkey's, birds, etc.) in the leafy area. Inside my room I bought rainforest themed fabric from Walmart to use on the bulletin boards (ferns, vines and frogs were some of the fabrics I used). This was a great investment because the fabric didn't fade and I can reuse it again. I also bought green and brown party streamers and I twisted them and pinned them up to the ceiling to look like vines and branches. I also hung huge colorful butterflies that I found at the dollar store from the ceiling. Hope this helps!

[Wrigley]

I am doing this theme this year. I have had so much fun! I have a word wall that is "We're Wild About Words" with the words on monkeys and synoymns of those words underneath them. I also bought a BB set that had monkey and jungle pictures for items such as the lunch count, class rules, class news, and class schedule. It also came with a card that said "We're Swinging Into Third Grade". I also bought a paper cutout tree to place in the hall with each student's name on a monkey. I have a big palm tree in front of my window. I also have toucans with the students' numbers on them for keeping up with their AR points. They move their Toucan through the three levels of the rainforest (up a cutout tree) to the number of points they have on AR. I just recently made a hut over my door. I did this by hanging an old shower curtain rod in my doorway and then glueing an Hawiian table skirt over my door to hang over the shower curtain. It is soooo cute. I also hung vines over my two bulletin boards with green paper and rainforest border. An artist friend of mine let me borrow her paintings of the characters in the Jungle Book movie. I dont plan on changing this theme for awhile. I hope that some of this babbling helped.

[hoynes]

I love your ideas!!! I teach pre-k and each has an animal theme. I picked monkey because I've done everything else but I had no ideas how to decorate my room. So..THANK YOU!

[Wrigley]

I also have a M.O.N.K.E.Y. book. I got the idea from another proteacher post. It stands for My Organized Notebook and Key for an Effective Year. I and the kids love it.

I love your idea about the rainforest hut. Do you have any pictures of this that I could see to better help me? Thanks!