Classroom Decor Ideas
Back to School Decor Ideas
If you’re a social studies teacher looking for great back to school classroom decor ideas, you’re in the right place! When we’re thinking about purposeful classroom decor, there are three general types: inspirational, content-specific, and classroom management. We’ve listed our 10 best resources that we’ve personally used in our classrooms over the years. We want to help you kickstart back to school the best way possible, and all the links to our resources are listed below!
Classroom Decorations
Timeline Posters
If you’re a history teacher, a historical timeline visual can be extremely helpful! Students can make sense of when different events or civilizations occurred during each unit. We’ve created three different versions of these timeline posters, specifically Ancient Civilizations, Early American History, and Modern US History. The great thing about these is students can see how different civilizations or events stack on top of each other. These posters are especially helpful for our visual learners, as they’re color-coded as well. If you’d like to see a full video of how we put these timelines together, you can check it out here.
We now also have event-specific timelines for Ancient Civilizations and U.S. history, in addition to comparative timelines for world history through modern times!
Content-Specific Posters
Content-specific posters can give students a road map of where they’re going in each unit throughout the year. We’ve designed our posters to correspond with the timeline posters mentioned previously. Because they’re color-coded to the specific civilization or event, they’re an excellent additional visual tool. These posters are also helpful in that they won’t overwhelm your students with excess information. You can find these posters included in the timeline poster links above. We’ve also created GRAPES posters for components of civilization which include Geography, Religion, Achievements, Politics, Economics, and Society. You can find this poster resource here.
Classroom Rules/Procedures
It’s one thing to go over classroom expectations during the first week, but students aren’t likely to remember them later. Having classroom rules and procedures posters on your wall will make it easier to hold your students accountable. If a student begins misbehaving, it becomes effortless to point out the issue and make it very clear for them moving forward. These posters we’ve designed will make communication easier and improve classroom management all around. We also have travel-themed classroom expectations posters to go with any travel-themed classroom!
Early Finishers
Some students will always finish assignments extremely fast, so having early finisher activities is a must. With that, we’ve found having a visual students can pick from is a game-changer. We’ve created a system of 26 (A-Z) activities and corresponding posters for early finishers you can find here. They’re an effortless way to take care of your early-finisher students and always be prepared!
Inspirational Quotes
Inspirational quotes have a time and place in your classroom and can be a fun addition. It’s great decoration because it’s such an easy visual to create and put up. You can be super simple by just finding your favorite quotes and printing them out, there’s definitely no shortage. Even on a budget they can stand out by simply adding a colorful paper background! If you’re looking for themed quotes, we do have inspirational quotes for Ancient Civilizations and US History from historical figures.
Maps
One of Mr. Social Studies’ favorite classroom decor is maps, and they’re perfect if you need something last minute. However, we have to be careful on how maps convey information and how students perceive them. We do have a resource about map projections that can help students understand that not all maps are created equal. They’re also nice as there are lots of different kinds, such as whiteboard and collage maps we’ve used in the past.
Travel-Themed Skyline Posters
While we’ve briefly mentioned travel-themed decor, one of our favorite visuals is our skyline posters. They feature international skylines as well as major cities from the United States. They do only come in black and white, so they’re also budget friendly. All you need to do is print them out quickly at school and hang them up.
Word Walls
A topic we’ve always been passionate about is word walls. They’re a nice tool to help students visualize many of the key terms they’ll be using throughout the school year. All cards come with the definition and image to help visual learners. Word walls are also great, as there are multiple ways to set them up. You can have them rotate throughout the year depending on the unit, have your students create them, etc. We’ve created multiple sets of word wall cards including general social studies terms, Ancient Civilizations, and Early American history.
Never used a word wall before? This blog post will teach you how to set up, organize, and use them effectively in your Ancient Civilizations classroom, or you can check out this post for early American history or this post for modern American history!
Coffee Table Books
A very affordable decor idea with tons of cool options is coffee table books. You can find some beautiful, full color images and photos from around the world. They can be found in bookstores on clearance, thrift stores, or Goodwill. If you’re looking for something with minimal effort and cost, coffee table books are the way to go!
Interactive Display
This is one of our least effort options, especially if you’re a last-minute kind of person. It’s creating an interactive bulletin board or even part of your room that’s all about getting to know the students. All you have to do is come up with a prompt and have a space set up, then during the first week of school have students complete an activity. It could be a get-to-know-you activity or setting up goals, then you simply hang them up on the wall. It makes the classroom more personal and you get to know your students better at the same time.
Back to School Classroom Decor
We need to remember that the amount or quality of classroom decor you have doesn’t determine your worth as a teacher. Classroom decor is nice to have, but at the end of the day it’s not a replacement for you. With that being said, it’s still helpful to have tools that make content more fun and engaging for students! If you liked any of our Classroom Decor Ideas be sure to check out our New Teacher Checklist! We created this free resource to help new teachers make sure they have everything they need to start the school year off right!
If you liked this list of 10 Classroom Decor Ideas for Social Studies, consider watching the corresponding video here!
Are you looking for some new teaching ideas to engage your students in your social studies class? If so, you’ll love our FREE guide: 5 Creative Projects to Ignite Student Engagement in Your Social Studies Class. These activities have both printable and digital options and can work for any social studies subject!
