A Travel Classroom Theme can be exciting, and you can easily bring in geography, literature, and all kinds of social studies. Set the mood by decorating with around the world flair:
- Cut window or porthole frames for your bulletin board and fill them with travel posters showing different exotic locations, as though students are seeing the world from a plane or ship.
- Scholastic World Continents Bulletin Board has bright pieces for each continent. You can arrange them like a map, or put them around the room for “Math Down Under” and “Write Across Europe.” Add the Kids Around the World border.
- If you go with “Math Down Under,” consider Kangaroo Math Pockets from Shapes, Etc. Put folded paper “aprons” on kangaroo cutouts to match up equations on the kanga and answers on the joeys. Shapes, Etc. also has more Australia ideas. Use these ideas for the Australia corner.
- Check out our Arctic worksheets and Penguin Ideas for Antarctica.
- Rainforest Theme Ideas can inspire you for the South American section.
- Safari and Jungle themes can be the starting points for Africa or Asia.Tropical Paradise Theme Ideas can end up in several different continents.
- Travel posters are a fast way to dress up your room. Travel agencies may donate some, or you can use vintage travel posters like Africa, Fly TWA Poster or Indian Elephant Travel Poster. Reproductions are widely available, and many showcase fine art.
- Dover has a wonderful collection of Old-Fashioned Luggage Labels stickers and there are also vintage style Travel Destinations Stickers. Put these all over the room.
- Focus on transportation with ideas from Car and Hot Air Balloon themes.
There are so many many fun ways to bring travel into your classroom and meet standards at the same time.
- Have students create travel brochures to encourage tourism to a country of their choice — or to your own community. Either way, it’s a chance for research and writing, plus art and — if you have them work on the computer — technology practice.
- Create passports for each student. Add a picture (just take a shot with the Polaroid i-Zone 200 Mini Instant Camera and sticker film and you’ll have an instant photo sticker) and identifying details, and then stamp the passport as students reach milestones through the year.
- Practice technology with GPS and Google Earth while you dream of travel.
