Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

Playful Learning Ideas for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Easy Ways to Decorate a Classroom with the Children’s Work

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Inside: When you use items that the children have made to decorate a classroom, you are adding more personality to your environment.

Have you noticed that when you display your children’s artwork and projects, they beam?

They are so proud of what they worked on, and love pointing it out to anyone.

“I made that!”

It also makes our classroom feel more homey. It’s their classroom, so it only makes sense that their work is what is hanging in the windows and on the walls. Even on the shelves!

I’ll take child-made classroom decor over commercial decor any day.

And, since teachers are always on a budget, we are saving money not buying all those posters and decorations!

I thought I’d share some of the ways we have used the children’s work to adorn our toddler and preschool classroom.

Easy Ways to Decorate a Classroom with the Children's Work

 

 

Easy Ways to Decorate a Classroom with the Children’s Work

Birthday Displays

We dedicate two birthday bulletin boards for each class’s birthdays. (One for our 2’s turning 3 and one for our 3’s turning 4.) As each birthday arrives, we remove the crown so that the birthday child can wear it and then take it home. This is a great visual for the children to see whose birthday is next!

 

Designing a Classroom

 

Kid-Made Art

 

Windowsills and the tops of our short shelves are the perfect areas to display 3-dimensional art!
Don’t our cherry blossom trees look cute in our classroom windowsill?
Designing a Classroom
Our apple trees adorned the top of one of our short shelves.
fall apple tree craft
 

Wall Art

Rather than have teacher-made bulletin boards on our wall, I much prefer attaching child-made art. If you cannot use staplers or thumbtacks, try attaching a rope that is attached using command hooks, as we have done in many of the photo below.

How to Put Together Toddler Circle Art with Paper Tubes

While learning about penguins, we created marble-painted penguins to add to our classroom wall.

Marble-Painted Penguin Craft for Preschoolers

For this activity, we created small collages for different colors of the rainbow. The children brought items from home that matched these colors and we glued them onto canvas that we had painted earlier.
Preschool Art Ideas

 

Another fun activity that we hung on our wall was our color wheel.
How to teach colors to preschoolers
We love creating art that goes with a favorite book. We then attach the book cover to the display, too!
Love Monster Counting Craft for Preschoolers
While learning about opposites, we made this black and white mural and then hung it on the wall.
Learning About Opposites with a Fun Black and White Sorting Activity
We displayed our black and white canvas collage at our exploration table.
Day and Night Activities for Preschoolers
We love to hang our work in our classroom tree, as shown here.

Here’s another tree that we made for our spin art apples.

We’ve also combined art from different classes to make one bulletin board, such as this sunflower art.

 

We’ve even taking a circle time activity and displayed the results on the wall.

 

Hanging Art

 

We used driftwood and buttons to create hanging murals.

 

Designing a Classroom

 

We also love creating mobiles that relate to our themes, such as a rainbow mobile.

How to Make a Mobile for a Toddler Rainbow Activity

Another fun rainbow window activity was filling and hanging baubles. This was part of a color sorting activity we did with our 2 year olds.

Hanging Rainbow Sorting Activity for Preschoolers

We also made leaf Suncatchers to add some color to the room.

How to Make a Colorful Fall Leaf Suncatcher with Toddlers

During the Christmas season we creating a gingerbread banner that hung in our window.

How to Create Easy Gingerbread Art Using Golf Balls and Paint
While getting to know each other during back-to-school, we put together and displayed a friendship banner.

How to Create a Banner for a Toddler Friendship Activity

Window Art

Creating our own colorful window art is also fun!
Here's a Quick Way to Strengthen Toddler Fine Motor Skills

 

 

We like to hang our work in the hallway window, too!

During winter, we made snowflakes to hang in our window.

Related post: Fine Motor Snowflake Art

Fine Motor Snowflake Art for Preschoolers

We also made giant snowflake art to hang with those smaller snowflakes.

Related post: Simple Wooden Snowflake Craft

Fine Motor Snowflake Art for Preschoolers

When spring arrived, we put our ladybugs in the window.

Related post: Ladybug Suncatchers

How to Turn a Ladybug Craft into a Fun Suncatcher

While learning about nocturnal animals, we made bat suncatchers.

Related post: Easy Bat Craft for the Window

How to Make a Bat Craft with Preschoolers

Hanging from the Ceiling

Yep, take advantage of your classroom ceiling, too!

watercolor jellyfish craft

 

Seasonal Displays

 

We love to display seasonal collections! The wreath was put together using tissue paper leaves that each child made.

Designing a Classroom
Here’s another fall wreath that our toddlers made to adorn our classroom.
Super Easy Fall Wreath for Toddlers and Preschoolers
And here are some Valentine hearts that we displayed in the window, too.
Super Fun and Colorful Toddler Valentine Craft for the Window

For St. Patrick’s Day, we made shamrocks out of heavy paper and hung them on a wire in the window.

St. Patrick's Day Craft for Toddlers

While talking about thankfulness before Thanksgiving, we made a “We are Thankful” banner.

How to Make a Toddler Thankful Banner for Thanksgiving

Part of our Christmas theme was making Christmas cards for our families. We made them early enough so we could first hang them in the window.

Put together a toddler Christmas card activity that also works fine motor skills as bright and cheerful felt circles are pressed onto a paper tree. Attach it to a handmade gift as a special touch!


Easy Ways to Decorate a Classroom with the Children's Work

 

More photos of our classroom, plus 6 others:

 

favorite preschool school supplies

 

 

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About Sheryl Cooper

Sheryl Cooper is the founder of Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds, a website full of activities for toddlers and preschoolers. She has been teaching this age group for over 20 years and loves to share her passion with teachers, parents, grandparents, and anyone with young children in their lives.

Comments

  3. Mary Catherine says

    I LOVE taking peeks into other preschool classrooms! I love all of the meaningful, homey touches you’ve added. I’ll definitely be referencing this when I set up next year’s classroom. 🙂

  4. Becki W says

    I’m curious…at the end of the year (or whenever you want to switch them out) what happens to the Group Canvas Pieces? Do you pick a family to take it home or do you keep them all? I REALLY like the idea of doing this, but with my small room and limited wall space, I’m not sure what I’d do with it once I took it down…

    • Sheryl Cooper says

      I save them and change them out throughout the year. However, giving them away would be another nice idea. Hmmm….a small fundraising idea? Or, just a simple lottery to give away for free.