Any ideas for an OZ themed classroom?

Question

This is going to be my first year teaching and I wanted to have a themed classroom. I will be teaching the fourth grade and feel that The Wizard of Oz would be a great theme (plus, I live in Kansas). I have several ideas about how to implement it, but was hoping for more input. Does anyone have any ideas about how to use it within the room? I am talking about bulletin board ideas, general decorating ideas, or anything else you can think of! I would greatly appreciate any ideas!

Answer 1

First of all, I am curious about why you'd want to base your whole class on the Wizard of Oz. By that, do you mean the movie? What do you want your students to get out of the theme? And how will you implement it in your lessons to make it meaningful to the students so the classroom isn't extraneous to their learning?

Now onto my ideas:

You could go with the whole yellow brick road pasted around the walls of the classroom to show student progress (to see who reaches "Oz" first), or to track the whole class's progress, if you are encouraging cooperative learning.

You could also have learning centers around the classroom themed around the different settings from the books/movie.

Once you've decided why you want to use that theme, the ideas may flow more clearly as you link the theme to different educational goals. Good luck. I'm sure it'll be a lovely classroom once you've decorated it. Just be sure not to spend too much time on decorating your classroom and not enough time planning your lessons. I made that mistake the first year of teaching...

Answer 2

I have used this theme for the past two years in my first grade classroom.  I am a "Louisiana" Dorothy named after my grandmother who lives in Kansas.  For the beginning of school, I created a board with "There's No Place Like First Grade".  Students names were printed on little dogs placed around ruby slippers that I had drawn.  I constantly reminded my students that each of them had hearts, brains and courage.  Anything could be possible.  You could also use this to encourage kindness- every student comes to school with a caring heart.  Of course, we worked all year to reach the end of the yellow brick road which was second grade.  My board displaying my star student was entitled "An Oz-some Student".  I used green printed material for the background and included a picture of Oz that I drew and painted.  On other boards, I used blue checked material as my background.  I also found scarecrows and stuffed lions to sit around.  One lion and a journal went home with a different student each night one year.  In this journal, students were to write a short story telling what fun the lion had that evening in their home.  The following day each student would share his story with the class and a new student was chosen to take the lion home that night.  I also got other ideas from searching the internet.  A good idea is to check out some of the birthday party ideas posted at some of these sites.  Good luck with your classroom!

Answer 3

No, i think that's a GREAT idea!  i have my room decorated with a frog theme, and my lessons don't revolve around frogs!

there's no place like home bulletin board where students can write stories about their families.

you could do a character bulletin board dealing with friendship, or the different traits each character brought to the movie

follow the yellow brick road to each center.

you could use the ruby red slippers as a math display where the students measure their feet.

very cool idea, good luck.

Answer 4

You could incorporate a hot air balloon as a bulletin board.