Each month of the school year, have a specific artist that students can study.  Items that can be studied include artist’s background,  style,  work.  This leads to opportunities to creating their own work in that style.

This is a year-long bulletin board.  There is a leafless tree on the board.  After reading the book, The Giving Tree, we talked about giving to each other.  One way to do this is to give each other compliments.  When a student sees something that they would like to compliment, they can write on a leaf and put it on the tree.  Throughout the year, the tree gets more and more leaves. 

Take the lyrics to a song and split them up, one line per person.  The person has to write the lyric on the top of their paper, and then illustrate it.  This is a great activity for Earth Day or some other special theme.  i.e. What a Wonderful World

Before Thanksgiving, my students and I brainstorm a list of all the people in our school who we’re thankful for. Then, each student selects a person to write a thank you letter to, and I take their pictures with the person they wrote to.