January in Michigan can be downright drab and dreary.  It’s cold it’s snowy and really really white!  There’s only one way to combat the lack of color, and that’s by utilizing every Astorbrights® advantage that I can muster.  A gang of brightly clothed snow friends seemed to be just the thing to brighten things and get the New Year off to a great start.

I don’t really have the benefit of a hallway bulletin board for my classroom creations.  The area above my coat rack was (and still is) a wall of windows.  These were impractical because they basically looked into, not my classroom, but the backside of a set of cupboards that had been put up.  So I covered the windows with installation board and white vinyl.  The challenge, however, has been to find a way to fill the space with color and fun each month.  I mean, it’s a big white space.  It needs color!  So, of course, Astrobrights was just the tool I needed to make this space bright and cheery.

In September, I used Astrobright cardstock to create colorful monsters to welcome my new kinder friends.

In October, my students created a colorful pumpkin patch of shapes and sizes to celebrate the fall season.  You can download that banner HERE.  It’s not anything fancy schmancy friend.  Just a simple download, but you’re welcome to it if you’d like it.

We used hexagons, octagons, ovals, triangles, squares, and circles to create a bushel of sweet pumpkin pals.

In November, we use that same idea of various shapes to create a flock of turkeys.

Each time, Astrobrights® Papers did the trick and brought the BRIGHT!  So, of course, when I was pondering what kind of fun friends we could make to brighten our board, I knew that Astrobrights would HAVE to be part of the plan.

Each student was given a different shape to start their snow friend.  There were octagons, hexagons, circles, rectangles, and ovals.

We talk a lot about using shape when creating in my classroom.  If you draw a shape, you can make all kinds of things.  So after the head, it was simple to talk about eyes being the shape of circles, noses being triangles and so on.

Step by step we used shapes (half circle hats with rectangular brims and circular puff balls) and Astrobrights papers to create these adorable snow friends.  I added a little banner using some of my favorite Astrobrights blues and purples to give it a finishing touch.

Venus Violet™, Blast Off Blue™, Celestial Blue®, Terrestial Teal™

I absolutely love them.

They are all so different and fun.

And they will definitely make coming back to school in cold, snowy January a bit more bearable.  If you’d like to grab a copy of the banner to print on your own choice of Astrobrights papers, you can click the banner below to get yours.

Happy New Year!