My theme this year it to find ways to make things EASIER AND LESS STRESSFUL!  But one idea came to me, with the help of my fabulous Art Teacher, that will end up saving me at least an hour or two in making the Battle of the Texas 2×2 Bulletin board display at the beginning of each year.  So I thought I’d share with my peeps!

In the past, I used to spend a day re-creating my Battle of the Texas 2×2 Bulletin board display. (You can read more about that activity here.)  I would go pull off the orange butcher paper from our workroom, gather black construction paper to glue down for the 4 rounds, print off the pictures and glue them down, and then print off the book covers.  This year, while I was getting ready to start making the bulletin board my Art teacher came in and asked, “Didn’t you already make that last year?”  To which I responded, “Yes, but I’m remaking it for this year for the new books.”  She looked confused and said, “Why?”

And that’s when it hit me!  WHY indeed?

Why am I spending time each year to remake the same background???   The only thing that really changes is the 20 book covers.  And then it was like lightning struck me!  If I laminate the Texas 2×2 Bulletin Board, then all I have to do is add the book covers each year!   GENIUS!

I will admit…I felt a silly for not coming to this conclusion sooner!  (This will now be my 4^th time doing this activity with my students!)  But I brushed off that self-criticism and immediately got started.  I pulled off 4 feet of orange butcher paper.  If I had had the time, I would have used fadeless bulletin board paper like you can find here, but since this was the day before school started I had to go with what I already had. 🙂

Since it is too wide to fit through the laminators, I decided to glue everything down and then find the halfway point and cut the paper in half lengthwise.  I printed all the pictures and words on regular paper so it was pretty easy to cut through everything.  Then I took each half, laminated it, and then stapled it back together on the wall outside the library.   All I had to do then was print out the book covers and staple them up! Voilà!  Easy-Peasy!

I’ll be honest…I had this HUGE silly smile on my face when I saw it all put together!  Just knowing that I’m NOT going to have to make this again next year makes my heart happy!  It’s the little things in life, right???!! LOL

I’d love to hear about any time-saving ideas you have!