Decorate the main bulletin board in the classroom with the appropriate theme. For instance, adorn the board with paper cutouts of apples, school books and rulers for a back-to-school theme, and use small silver or gold letter cutouts to display each of your students' names on the board. Or, let the little ones help you come up with a St. Patrick's Day-themed bulletin board, complete with leprechaun hats the kids have decorated with crayons, glitter and felt strips, images of four-leaf clovers and small candies wrapped in gold that you can staple to the board.
Hang posters on all the walls of the classroom that showcase some of the academic and moral principles you'll cover throughout the school year. For instance, showcase a poster that shows basic math concepts like multiplication and division, and place a poster beside that shows two students studying together, signifying that working together to accomplish academic goals is ideal. Set the posters in brightly colored plastic frames for more visual appeal.
Devote another bulletin board solely to the construction paper crafts students make every few weeks. For instance, if you've been teaching about the transformation a caterpillar makes into a butterfly, divide the board in half and display the paper caterpillars each child has created and accented with pieces of felt or leather for spot and stripe embellishments. Then add the butterflies the students decorated with glitter and watercolors on the other end of the board.
Get permission from your principal to paint one of the walls in the classroom. Send a notice home to parents so they'll send their kids to school with clothes they can paint in the day of the project. Encourage the children to paint some of the things they've learned so far, or some of their favorite things about school. Accent the wall with curtains (if there are windows) to create a slightly tailored look.
Let your students trace each other's images on large foam boards, so you can cut the images out and create life-size decorations that are specific to your class. Attach cardboard stands to the back of the foam cutouts and allow the children to adorn the cutouts with items like paint, glitter and yarn. You can even use this decoration for teaching lessons about friendship, or for addition and subtraction visual aids.