I just finished post-planning today and I'm already thinking about my theme for next year. Nascar is a big deal to most here in north Florida so I thought I might go with a race car theme. I have already gathered a few ideas from this site but would like more. Anyone out there used this theme before? I would appreciate any ideas.
I'm from North Fl. Where are you from exactly? I live in Destin. An idea for you is to check with your local movie theater. The new movie Cars is coming out and I've seen some cute car stuff at our movie theater. It might be worth you checking it out.
I've used the Nascar theme for the past two years. You can find pics of my room at www.mrscopelandsclass.com.
*I use classroom money, called Crew Bucks, as a reward for good behavior. Students who turn 0 cards receive two Crew Bucks at the end of they day and those who turn only 1 card (warning) receive one Crew Buck. Every six weeks or so we have the "Pit Stop." This is our store where students can spend their Crew Bucks on coupons and various items I collect and receive from parents. They love their Crew Bucks!!
*At the beginning of the year I hang a large banner in the hallway that says "Welcom Race Fans." I write students' names on trophies and hang them around the sign. (The banner was purchased at the party store.)
*We use AR at my school. I made a (straight) race track with black butcher paper and wrote students names on race cars. I move their cars up as they acheive each percentage of their goals.
*One of the kids' favorites has to be the reading tires. They are pictured on the web. I purchased racing handkerchiefs and my mom turned them into the pillows you see on the tires. I fill the middle of the tires with books so the kids won't sink!
*Helpers- I call my helpers "Mrs. C's Pit Crew." I wanted to make sure the theme was "girly" enough so I used various materials (from Wal-Mart) to cut out the race cars. (on website)
*I also found at the Party Store black and white checked trays that I used to collect notes from home and homework.
*Attendance: "The Starting Line" made with library pockets.
*I created multiplication and homework incentive displays with materials purchased from the teacher store. You can also find several borders to match the theme. I like to purchase the racing pencils and bookmarks for back to school gifts.
*I found several racing tins at the dollar store and use them to store manipulatives and cards.
I was just looking back at the pics on my website and am just now realizing that I never added my pics from this year!!! I can't believe that my year just ended and I never did that. My theme was the same this year but I made a lot of changes in my room arrangement. I'm going to try and get the pics from this year on my site ASAP. I think it looked much better this year.
Nevertheless, boys and girls love the racing theme. It is original and that's why I want to stick with it a while longer. My kids often bring me things like calendars, notepads, pens, and such with racing themes! Parents and students always get the impression that I'm a huge Nascar fan when the truth is I could care less. My husband and his dad are big fans but not me!!! I just like the decorations.
Betsy, thanks so much for all the racing ideas. I am the same as you - not a racing fan at all. However, I realized this year how much my students loved Nascar so I decided to go with the theme next year. Thanks again for all your help!
Thanks Brooke for the movie theater idea. I will check it out. I live in Fernandina Beach, just north of Jacksonville. I grew up in Monroeville, AL so Pensacola was our place to go to the beach growing up. My sister-in-law teaches at an elementary school in Navarre. She and my brother live on Santa Rosa Island. I don't think they can take another busy hurricane season this year. They have had major water in their home on 2 occasions.
Thanks again for the tip.
I used the racing theme this past year with grades 6-8. My theme was "Jesus Makes Me a Winner" I used black/white checkered border around the bulletin board, checkered flags around windows, the saying "God's Trophy's" on a wall with a picture of a trophy for each child with their name and birthday where the engraving would have been. I also had a "Victory Lane" where I would put a car with the students name and subject for the 100's. My "pit crew" was my cleaning team that had cleaning duty each day. I gave out "tickets" for demerits and "points" for getting goal check each day, etc. This was a lot of fun and they loved it.
I think I'm losing my mind. I've been trying to figure out what happened to my room pics from this school year and I finally found them! You have to click on Jungle Pics!!! I changed my website theme last summer from racing to jungle, but I guess I shouldn't call them jungle pics if even I couldn't find them!
Next year we are "Racing to success in 2nd grade" Each child has 4 tires and if they lose them they go to the principles office. Losing 1 tire is a few minutes off of recess. Losing 2 tires is a few minutes off of free time plus few minutes off of recess. 3 tires means no recess. I have a Pit crew ...line leader, helper, etc. I also have an incentive chart and checkered valanced curtains.
Hi,
We just finished with a race car theme this year in 7th grade middle school. We have 4 very large bulletin boards above our lockers. We used red sparkle border and found black/white checkered flag material at hobby lobby; you can also find this at a party store as a roll of plastic tablecloth. We covered one board with road maps from an old atlas; put a black meandering road down the middle and titled it "On the Road to success"; We covered one board with black shiny fabric and put our team motto in large letters surrounded by several road signs modified for education. A local sign person did these for use and donated everything. Other smaller boards were "Fuel for the Brain" , this was from a website; Brain in the middle with books from each subject area and arrows from each book going to the brain. "All fired up for learning" fast car picture with smoking tires. On one board we covered the middle with black fabric and each end with the black/white check. We took a picture of each of our students individually in front of a checkered fabric background, then cut them out in flag shapes and glued on popcicle sticks and stapled them to the board.
Hope these ideas help - have a great year.
Just one more thing, we decorated our hallways with the plastic pennants from the autmotive department at "Wal-mart", we found some that were black and red and had the oil name etc. on them. They donated them free, I just called the local manager, they worked great and really made our hallway look like race day.
Wal Mart has Cars sheets and pillow cases. I'm covering my door with a solid red and cutting out the pillow picture to put on the door. They also carry Cars fabric (great for curtains ) but were sold out when I was there. Also found a cute Cars poster there. School & Carnival Supply stores carry checkered flags (on a 20 foot line), checkered table cloths and I even found a race car pinata. They also had the crossed flag stickers in 2 sizes and checkered boarder.
Did I see race car calendar numbers on your website? If so, where did you find those? Your website has been very helpful in decorating for my class this year. We are also using the racing theme for our AR. I have some really great ideas - need to get busy with those. Thanks
I am taking a pair of blue curtains, cutting strips from a yard of NASCAR material to make a border on the solid curtains for my window. Or I might just make a valence with the NASCAR material. You can purchase the material at WAL-Marts. I thought I would also cut strips from the NASCAR material for a bordette, or just drape the material around a bulletin board-whichever looks the best.
There are a couple good places to order some things: homeroomteacher.com and partycheap.com.
05-24-2006, 03:34 PM
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