End of the year bulletin board

Hey all you hard working teachers! I am posting my latest bulletin board idea and sharing with you how I created it! I took it from a design I saw online and tweaked it a bit. First off I found this one...Doodle Bug Teaching Blog and I loved the idea of using a gumball machine and the phrase. I decided I wanted to use this for the end of the year, so I changed the phrase a bit to sum up what fun we HAD! Although I loved this gumball machine, I wanted mine to have a more realistic look since I work with 3rd graders..

SO, I found this gem in a google images search and fashioned mine around this one. In order to make the gumball machine I first started with the bottom part. Whenever you are drawing something use shapes you know how to make. So I made a rectangle for the base and then followed that up with a long skinny cylinder for the bottom part. For the glass part, I simply made an oval like shape that had a skinny top part. I didnt have to worry about it looking perfect because the "hat" was going on the top and that really makes it look like a gumball machine. I added the hat by creating another oval with more of a flat bottom. Then a circle for the handle. For the yellow lines running down the bottom I just cut yellow strips of paper in order to attach to the outside of the machine. I then added the section for the quarter and the handle to turn it with and finally created gumballs that were about the size of large cap on a lotion bottle (which is what I used!).

I used a lid from a small coffee can to create the size of the large gumballs on the board itself and added the kids names to it. It was really pretty easy to do the whole thing but it took some time to really make it look good. Because I am such a lover of candy and sweet things I decided I wanted to make my classroom have a candy theme next year (if I get a job). So, I laminated the gumball machine so I could use it in my classroom next year! I have the graphic I used on my background listed on my tpt store. If you are interested in using a similar theme for your classroom, I will be posting items on my store this summer as I come up with them.

Sweet Reading!