Outside display panels for student work

My classroom has NO outside bulletin board to show student work, just a couple of strips that allow me to hang about 6-8 student pieces of work max. To fix this, I bought a $20 book of Marvel Comics Scrapbook Paper at Micheals (picture below, NO WHERE online except as individual sheets : (

I laminated these and hung them up using hot glue. Unfortunately, I have a student who frequently gets mad whenever he is called out on bad behavior who would stalk outside and knock them down (it's urban teaching folks, sort of a background detail here) so I taped down the side for a much better effect if not quite as good looking.

Now I can simply tape or hot glue the student work to the sheets and they look good. I have a display on either side of my door and have two assignments to show off at any point of time. I also took a page that had four superheroes' faces on it and made dialogue balloons (using the great Comic Life program) that explain what the students did and what Common Core Standard it teaches. They've been a big hit.

The original book of scrapbook papers, $20 for 120 pages, found at Micheals. Apparently not available in this form online. 

What the pages look like

 What the pages look like by themselves, laminated, hot glued to the wall and reinforced with clear tape. Next year I'm using a better quality tape on the edges. 

Student work taped to the laminated pages. Hot glue works too. 

I tend to use projects that take up less than a sheet of paper to show off the logo coolness on the corner. 

The speech balloons that say what the project is about. Thor says "Verily, thou canst distinguish facts from opinions, so says the mighty Thor!" while Iron Man starts "This is Ironman, prepare to received Common Core Sequence. ." followed by the exact code and then Hulk says "Hulk smash (fact) puny humans (opinion)"

Meanwhile, our students could be found at. . .

I created this display for my front classroom window to show where my students are at any given point. I made it by using the great Comic Life program and taking pictures of all the places students go. If I did it again I might change the styles of lettering for each place. I printed them out on cardstock, used a little tape to get them end to end then laminated the whole shebang and taped it top and bottom in my front window.

I also made a Superman clip by taking a picture of Superman flying (found in a Google image search), printing it on cardstock, laminating it, and duct taping it to a clothespin (I tried hot glue, it didn't work well.) A student is in charge of moving Superman to wherever we are at the time.

Classroom Locations PDF File

How the display works. 

The image I used for the pointer mounted on a clothes pin. 

Welcome to Superman's Classroom

Hello there. My name is Mr. McCarty and I am in my 15th year of teaching elementary. I work for Kansas City Public Schools in a classroom deep in the urban core. Our school is very interesting and diverse, as we serve many refugee students from all over the world. In my three years here I have served students from Burma, Somalia, Honduras, Vietnam, Liberia, Ghana, Central African Republic, and numerous other places. Our school is considered highest poverty level and 99% minority. It's a terrific challenge and I look forward to it daily.

I'm a big comic book geek. I used to manage a comic book store for a couple of years and even wrote my Education Specialist dissertation on using comics for education called Seduction of the Illiterate which you may read at that link.

When my school decided on a superhero theme this year I really, really found my "theme groove" as I call it. I've been making things for my classroom ever since and continue to do so. This blog exists for me to share about my creations and what's happening in my room. Thank you for reading and please feel free to post in the comments.