Back to School Themes for the New School Year

Back to School Themes for the New School Year

The beginning of the school year is the perfect time to set the tone, motivate students, and encourage positive behavior and attitudes for the new school year. Choosing positive back to school themes to start the school can help create a welcoming and inclusive learning environment where students feel supported and motivated to learn.

A positive back to school theme can also help students feel connected to the school community and encourage them to participate in activities and events.

1. Character Traits

Check with your school to see if there will be an overall back to school theme. Many schools start with a theme related to character development or character traits. Sometimes this may be a district-wide initiative.

Common character traits implemented at the beginning of the year are kindness, resilience, courage, integrity, respect, citizenship, gratitude, school pride, and compassion. Each one of these character traits can be displayed with a creative and interactive bulletin board.

You can create an interactive bulletin board and incorporate activities like The Kindness Challenge, Kindness Bingo, and the Kindness Initiative.

For teaching ideas that link to this theme, try introducing character traits at the elementary school level with a mini writing unit or student choice activities that enhance their writing skills. At the middle school level, try incorporating learning about character traits into their experiences reading literature.

2. Adventure/Exploration

This theme can inspire creativity and a love for learning. You can decorate your classroom like a jungle, a spaceship, or a historical place to make students feel as if they are embarking on an exciting journey of discovery.

3. Storybook

Do you have a favorite story you like to use when starting the school year? Some great storybook titles may include David Goes to School by David Shannon, The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn, and Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.

Decorate your classroom according to the story. A storybook can be a powerful way to help students understand social scenarios, positive classroom culture, how to deal with social-emotional skills, life lessons, morals, and values.

Using a storybook theme for back to school can help initiate meaningful classroom conversations and encourage positive decision-making.

4. Movies and Television

Students love to watch television and movies. In general, you can create a Hollywood or movie theater back to school theme, or you can choose a specific show or movie.

Choose a theme that is popular with your students. It could be a recent movie or a classic movie. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is one movie that can fill the classroom with vibrant and exciting colors. What student wouldn’t want to enter a classroom decorated with amazing treats?

You can also incorporate the lessons learned throughout the story and compare them to possible classroom scenarios. Students can watch the movie after reading or listening to a book as a culminating activity.

For fun teaching ideas, try this printable for elementary with activities for learning about drive-in movies. Middle schoolers might enjoy dreaming up a movie about themselves, with this comic strip activity that doubles up as a fun “all about me” icebreaker. You could also have your middle or high school students try making a miniature movie set.

5. Sports

Sports are a great theme that can encourage teamwork and unity. You can decorate the classroom in the style of a particular sport or with a more general sports theme, with posters, equipment, and team jerseys.

7. Social Media

Even though students may not have accounts, they are familiar with many social media platforms. You can incorporate a theme replicating Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Tik Tok and more.

Create an interactive bulletin board that could include posts to the feed, comments to the posts, trending stories, supportive pictures, classroom ads, and more. Activities that focus on getting to know the students can emulate what social media platforms look like.

A social media theme would be an inclusive way to make all students feel included without creating a valid social media account.

Incorporate the theme into learning activities with social media-themed projects, like this Colonial America Social Media Feed Mini-Project for elementary students, great for fall, or this African-American Scientists Social Media Account Project for middle school and high school students.

8. Superheroes

A superhero theme can promote values like courage, perseverance, and helping others. You can decorate the classroom with posters of superheroes and encourage students to think about their own 'superpowers' or strengths.

9. Music

Music can be a universal language that brings people together. A music-themed classroom could include posters of different musicians, instruments, and music notes.

Incorporating music in the classroom can also help in creating a positive learning environment. You can introduce activities that allow students to express themselves through music or use music to help them retain information. Song-writing activities or rhythm games can be an engaging way to learn new subjects or concepts.

10. Fun Themes

Some traditional themes can be implemented throughout the school year, including superheroes, carnival, the beach, camping, traveling, or even fairy tales.

Of course, there is always the option to purchase or create materials so that you can decorate before the first day of school. However, it can also be fun for students to develop parts that can be added to the decorations. For example, suppose you choose to incorporate a superhero theme. In that case, you can include a headshot of every student flying with a superhero body, where they have written their goal for the school year on the cape or in the clouds.

Using Back to School Themes to Set the Tone for the Year

Starting the school year with a positive theme promotes a sense of belonging which can boost student confidence and self-esteem. A positive school theme can establish a positive school culture and improve the overall student experience. Take time to determine the best theme for your students and prepare for the best school year yet.

Looking for More Back to School Inspiration?

Discover more ideas to welcome back your students, from back to school bulletin board ideas, to back to school activities and teaching ideas, at our Back to School Headquarters.