Create a Chinese New Year Book Review Bulletin Board for February

With this unique display, students advertise their favorite books that they have read so far during the school year.  I have done this twice and have gotten many positive comments from my collegues.  See the bottom of the article for helpful links to help you create the display.

1  Put up red bulletin board paper.

2.  Put up your desired border around the edges:  Bright yellow would be nice.  This year, I used a border that looks like bamboo that I ordered from TREND this past fall.

3.  Title:  A Good Book Is Worth A Fortune      I used the Ellison Press to make die cut letters from yellow construction paper.  If you laminate the paper first, and then put it through the press, you can use the letters year after year with only half the cutting.

4.  One year, I made origami fortune cookies.  They were really interesting because it made the display three dimensional, and I could use different shades of tan paper.  I found directions for making the cookies online.  With help from the art teacher, my class made enough for the entire 5th grade.  Each student had their own fortune cookie with attached book review "fortune".

This past fall, however, I saw that TREND had precut fortune cookies that came in packs of 50.  They look like photos of fortune cookies.  Each cookie even has a slit in it for inserting the fortune!  I had a parent laminate them and cut them out for me.  Unfortunately, I hadn't ordered enough of the cookie cut outs for the entire 5th grade.  I distributed the ones I had left among the classes and students who didn't have one attached their fortunes to pictures of dragons, pandas, lanterns, etc. that were copied onto red paper and cut out.  It really made the board more interesting.

5.  For accessories on the corners of the display, I found Chinese characters online that means "luck" and "happy new year".  I enlarged them on the copy machine, traced them over with black sharpie and mounted them on yellow construction paper for a nice border, then laminated them.

Another thing you could add are origami or purchased Chinese lanterns.  You can hang them from string from the bottom of the display.  I had my students make origami lanterns from red paper at the same time in art when they were making the origami cookies.

6.  For the "fortunes"  I had students think about the best book they read one evening for homework.  The next day, for morning work, I gave them an index card and told them to write no more than two sentences that will convince someone else that they should choose this book to read.  I told them the title of the book needed to be included in the first sentence.  In the computer lab that same day, one of their tasks was to type up and edit their sentences.  Students were not allowed to print until I had checked their work.    Students had to be careful to use an appropriate, easy to read font that was not too large.  Setting the word document to print in "landscape" format allowed for longer book reviews.  The book reviews were then printed and trimmed with the paper cutter and attached to one of the fortune cookies on the display.

RESOURCES

Fortune Cookie directions:  http://www.scrapfriends.us/articles/origami_cookie.html

paper lantern directions:  http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/chinesenewyear/lantern/

bamboo border:  http://www.trendenterprises.com/product_searchresults.cfm

die cut fortune cookies:  http://www.trendenterprises.com/ProdDetail.cfm

Chinese characters for display:  http://chineseculture.about.com/library/picks/aatp_luckysymbols.htm

Oriental Trading pre-made bulletin board set:  http://www.orientaltrading.com/ui/browse/processRequest.do?demandPrefix=11&productId=IN-57/6794&mode=Browsing&requestURI=processProductsCatalog&xsaleSku=57/20006&sku=57/6794&cm_sp=Cross Sell-_-Product Detail-_-Product Detail