It doesn’t have any obvious holidays or major events like many other months of the year do so it wouldn’t be surprising if any teacher were to struggle with finding relevant ideas for their classroom whiteboard.
However, once you dig a little deeper into May you will find that there are so many events and motifs that you can use to brighten up your whiteboard and grab the attention of your students!
From Mother’s Day to Memorial Day and from books to animals, there are so many themes that are unique to May.
Making your whiteboard interesting and relevant is an important task for every teacher. It’s a focal point of the classroom and is used to give important information and instruction to your students.
Finding new and interesting ways to decorate the whiteboard can get your students more invested and we have many May-related ideas to help.
In this article, we have the 9 best May whiteboard ideas to try today.
Whether you’re a talented artist or can barely draw stick figures, you will find something on this list that you can implement on your whiteboard.
Let’s get started!
1. Mother’s Day
Our first suggestion involves Mother’s Day. In the United States, this is always celebrated on the second Sunday in May so although the date will change from year to year, it is always in May.
There are many ways you can incorporate Mother’s Day onto your May whiteboard.
One of the most direct ways is to ask each student what their favorite thing about their mother is and then write the answers on the board.
You can also ask them to share a treasured memory or recall a specific time when their mother helped them.
Mother’s Day can be a sensitive subject for some students, however, so you may not want to be as direct.
Instead, you can hint at the day by decorating your whiteboard with drawings of pretty flowers instead. Flowers are one of the most popular Mother’s Day gifts and they’re also very easy to draw.
Get your colored whiteboard pens out and draw a bunch of flowers in the corner or spread them around the whiteboard as a border.
2. Memorial Day
Another holiday that is celebrated in May is Memorial Day. This is always the last Monday in May and it is very easy to add Memorial Day decorations to your whiteboard.
Your whiteboard is already white, so why not only use red and blue colored pens for the days leading up to the holiday?
You can draw American flags on the whiteboard and use them to decorate your board in a variety of different ways.
Memorial Day can also be a great springboard for teaching students about war.
Use a section of your whiteboard throughout May to highlight the name and dates of different wars and after staring at the information for a few days, your students are likely to remember the information without even noticing.
3. Star Wars Day
As “may the force be with you” is a popular slogan in the Star Wars saga, May the Fourth is commonly known as Star Wars day.
For the artistically talented, why not try your hand at drawing some of the Star Wars characters on your whiteboard?
There are many characters that students are sure to love such as droids like R2-D2 and BB-8 or cute little aliens like Baby Yoda.
If you’re not as talented at drawing, then instead opt for some motivational quotes.
Star Wars is full of short quotes that you can write on your whiteboard to motivate your students such as our personal favorite from Yoda: “Do or do not. There is no try.”
4. Cinco de Mayo
Following immediately after Star Wars Day is Cinco de Mayo, or May 5th.
This is the perfect opportunity to explore Mexican culture and can give you many colorful ways to brighten up your whiteboard.
Cinco de Mayo has many colorful decorations such as paper flowers, pinatas, maracas, and papel picados.
These are all pretty easy to draw on your whiteboard and they don’t have to be perfect, they just need to be colorful and full of joy!
There are many aspects of Mexican culture that you can draw attention to on your whiteboard.
And if you’ve exhausted every other Mexican idea you can think of you can always decorate your whiteboard with drawings of delicious Mexican food.
5. Sesame Street
Sesame Street has long been a favorite of America’s kids thanks to its cute characters and informational programming.
Everyone in America knows the main characters such as Big Bird, Elmo, and Cookie Monster and they are some of the simplest characters to draw.
May 25th marks Cookie Monster’s birthday so why not celebrate the day with some Sesame Street characters and cookies?
We love this theme because it can last for just the day or the entire month if you want to go through several of the characters.
Your students are sure to love the sight of Cookie Monster on your whiteboard!
6. Books
May is Get Caught Reading Month so you can use books as an ongoing theme throughout the month.
Books are very easy to draw so you can easily draw a pile in the corner of your whiteboard or decorate the edges of the board with them.
You can also use books as a topic to get your students talking and engaged. Ask them what their favorite book is and get them to write their answer on the whiteboard.
Select a book for the month and ask students their favorite parts or characters. You can tally their answers on the whiteboard and see what are the most popular answers.
7. Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month
May is also the month to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage.
This covers a large number of different cultures and countries and you can use your whiteboard throughout the month to introduce them to your students.
Pick a country and display its flag and important facts on your whiteboard for a few days before changing to another country.
You can introduce different cultural events or terms and write a short explanation on the whiteboard.
Another option is to celebrate famous Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders by dedicating a section of the board to them and their achievements.
There are many ways you can mark this important month on your whiteboard.
8. Animals
Animals are always a wonderful idea for whiteboards as they’re something every student can enjoy and get involved with.
May 21st marks National Endangered Species Day so you can also use May as a way to introduce endangered animals and conservation to your students.
Use a section of your board to focus on a different endangered animal every day or every few days.
You can introduce their location and habitat and explain the reasons why the animal has become endangered.
This can spark conversations in your classroom about how animals can be saved and get them to start thinking about broader issues.
You can even turn this into a longer project. Why not ask your students to research the animals themselves and ask them to provide the information for the whiteboard?
9. Inventions
May is also known as Inventor’s Month. It’s a month to celebrate all of the great inventions that have occurred throughout history that have impacted our lives and made them easier and more fulfilling.
There are several ways you can celebrate inventions throughout the month.
A fun game you can play with your students is to pick a different invention to highlight on your whiteboard each day and ask the students to guess which year it was invented.
You can keep a running score throughout the month and see which student (or group of students) has the most right answers.
You can also introduce inventors to your students. Feature a different inventor on your whiteboard and their most popular invention.
For prolific inventors such as Thomas Edison, you could get through the entire 31 days in the month just on their inventions alone!
Final Thoughts
In this article, we shared the 9 best May whiteboard ideas that you can try today.
Although at first glance May may seem like a month that doesn’t have many events and holidays contained within its 31 days, we hope that this list has shown that this isn’t the case.
There are many different themes and ideas you can use to decorate your whiteboard throughout May and get your class talking.
Some of the ideas we suggested make great decorations and others can be used as interactive activities that your students can get involved with.
We hope you enjoyed these ideas and use them on your whiteboard.
Hi, my name is Helena Waters and I was a teacher for 40 years before retiring last year.
During my time as a teacher I dedicated the majority of it to making classrooms as fun as possible, with educational parties, fun activities, and low cost entertainment that made the children excited about learning.
I taught children of all ages, from preschoolers to high school students. Now, with the pandemic having uprooted everything that children once knew about school and learning, I think that the need for my ideas is bigger than ever.
That is why I created School Sparks, a place in which I can write down and share all of my ideas on how to get students excited about going to school again. I hope that you’ll find some useful within a school setting, even at home too!
