25 Best Bulletin Boards to Celebrate Reading

With summer vacation rapidly approaching, the entire WeAreTeachers crew has books on the brain. Whether we’re prepping for summer book clubs, gathering up beach reads, or assigning summer reading to our students, we are constantly looking for an excuse to crack open a new book. Use the summer to get yourself and your students inspired for next year’s reads with this awesome collection of the 25 best reading bulletin boards.

Best Seasonal Reading Bulletin Boards

We always love commemorating the holidays with classroom decor representatives for each season, and there’s no easier way to do this than by creating a reading bulletin board with season- or holiday-themed reads.

A Harvest of Good Reading

Tip: Attach apples with book titles and/or covers to your tree or place real wooden barrels of classroom reads below the poster.

Grab a Good Book

Who’s up for a ghost story? Tip: Print out small book covers and place them in or in front of the hands in the display.

Season’s Readings

This simple winter display offers a lot of room for creativity. Tip: Recreate this bulletin board with ornaments bearing the titles or covers of popular reads.

March Madness Bracket

Your students will love voting on their favorite books and turning reading into a bit of friendly competition. Tip: Change the genre of books according to the ages and interests of your students.

Our Books Are Blooming

While this teacher chose to fill their flower pots with student-made books, you can just as easily replace the “blooms” with required reading or popular books in a variety of genres. Tip: Cut out small water droplets on which students can write their names and paste above the blooming books once they’ve read the corresponding selection.

Spring Forecast

Nothing like April showers (or summer storms) to make you hole up with a good book. Tip: Paste smaller book covers inside the raindrops and place a shelf or box of books at the end of the rainbow.

Something Cool to Read

I scream, you scream, we all scream for—books! Tip: Paste two-dimensional ice cream cones (or Popsicles!) on the board and write or attach book titles on the scoops of ice cream. Another variation of this display, which we have yet to see, is to design an ice cream freezer in which each flavor is replaced by a genre or book title (Ex: strawberry = romance, cookie dough = adventure, etc.)

Best Tech-Inspired Reading Bulletin Boards

In the age of cell phones, Netflix, and social media, it’s hard to convince kids that the best entertainment of all doesn’t require a WiFi connection. Get them to rethink communication with a bulletin board that calls on technological themes to promote reading.

Emoji Reads

What’s your reaction? Tip: Ask your students their favorite books to read when they’re happy, sad, worried, or angry. Alternatively, you might ask them which emotions the main characters of their favorite books deal with. Paste copies of their recommendations next to the corresponding emoji.

Books to Make You LOL

Books make the best mood boosters. Tip: Update this collection with different text reactions. For example, “Books to make you rotfl (roll on the floor laughing)” or “Books to make you say ‘omg’.”

iRead

No headphones necessary. Tip: Replace the app icons with book genres or titles. Take this one step further by recreating the iTunes screen with book titles in place of songs and authors in place of artists. This board may also serve as a great talking point for you and your students, sparking conversations about rethinking the way to read (via e-readers, audiobooks, etc.).

Bks R Lke Rly Lng Txt Msgs

Gone reading, TTYL. Tip: Add book covers or spines with the titles abbreviated in text lingo.

Spin-d Your Time Reading

This display is sure to get your students’ attention. Admittedly this one isn’t quite a bulletin board display, but it could just as easily be. Tip: Scale down the size of the paper spinners and and books and add a few more to your bulletin board display.

Level up in the Library

Another one of our favorites, this Nintendo-inspired board is worth its weight in gold … coins. Tip: Replace the gold coins on your board with books, then distribute plastic gold coins to students as they finish books. Create a small box of prizes that they can then purchase with their coins.

Best Punny Reading Bulletin Boards

Ah, puns. The highest form of literary mastery, in our humble opinion, is a good play on words. We can’t resist bringing puns into the classroom, and these reading bulletin boards are the perfect way to do so.

ReadBox

We’re obsessed with this idea and how dynamic this design is, whether you make it into a bulletin board or classroom door design. Tip: Keep this display all year and update the selection of books every couple of weeks.

Let’s Read a Latte

Nothing goes together better than teachers and coffee, right? Pay homage to your favorite beverage with this fun reading display. Tip: Use brown construction or butcher paper to have your kids design “sleeves” for their books as if they were hot beverages.

The S’more You Read

Reading sure is sweet, isn’t it? Tip: Use the ingredients of a s’more to correspond to vital storytelling elements (for example, the marshmallow might represent plot while the chocolate represents characters). Once your students meet their reading goals, treat them to a build-your-own-s’more party in the classroom.

Take Me to Your Reader

Reading will take you to another planet. Tip: Cut out printouts of book covers and place them below the spaceship as if they’re being captured and taken into space by the aliens.

Shelfies

We think this is a fabulous way to incorporate students, teachers, and administrators into the world of reading. Whether you take “shelfies” in the library or by your classroom bookshelf, your kids will love seeing their faces on the wall of the classroom.

Minions of Books

We can’t get enough of this adorable Minion bulletin board. Tip: Label each Minion’s overalls with the name of a student and allow each student to choose and design the book their Minion is reading.

Just Plain Clever Reading Bulletin Boards

These last few designs are in a league of their own. Whether they make relevant pop culture references or simply shock your students with their color and content, these bulletin boards are sure to motivate your young readers.

Read Me, Maybe

Like Carly Rae Jepsen’s hit, a good book will stay stuck in your head for a long time. We think this display is a great way to teach your students how to use call numbers to locate books in the library. Tip: Add real titles to the books along with their corresponding call numbers for your school library.

Pop Open a Good Book

Who says popcorn is only for the movies? Tip: Incorporate movie tickets into classroom reading. You might give a student an Admit One ticket stub as a pass to the library or make a reading times poster similar to the old movie theatre marquee signs.

Banned Books Week

This might just be our favorite design of all. Tip: Read Fahrenheit 451 with your students and then ask them which books they’d ban or which books they’d read despite the ban. After all, aren’t controversial books the most memorable?

Feed Your Brain

Hungry for books? We certainly are. Tip: Recreate this display with books as sandwiches (complete with oozing PB&J and teeth marks in the covers). As your students what kinds of books are required to maintain a balanced “diet.”

Frying up Great Readers

Like McDonald’s french fries, when it comes to books, you can’t have just one. As this photo suggests, assign each McDonald’s french fry container to a student and have them add “french fries” labeled with book titles each time they finish a book.

Read Return Repeat

Go green: Save power and read! Tip: Use this display as a springboard for discussion about how just like recycling is good for the planet, reading is good for the people who live on it.

What are your favorite reading bulletin boards? Come and share in our WeAreTeachers Helpline group on Facebook.

Plus, 25 anchor charts that teach reading comprehension.