"Recipe For Success!" Ocean Themed Classroom Door Decorating Idea

A few years back, we featured the amazing ocean themed classroom of my good friend Lisa Dailey-Mooney. At the time she was a third grade teacher in Ohio. Currently, Lisa teaches kindergarten in Pensacola, Florida, designing graphics for teachers (check them out at Lisa's Little Graphics!) in her spare time, and invited us to check out her new classroom!

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Ocean Themed Bulletin Board Idea

We've always loved the "Recipe for Success!" bulletin board idea and thought it was fun that Lisa tailored the design to fit with her ocean inspired classroom using a salt water taffy theme! The whole design is cute, but we especially love the three-dimensional candies and the custom dolphin graphic!

Recipe For Success!

  • Background: Cover the top half of the bulletin board with bright blue bulletin board paper and the bottom half with bubbles themed paper.
  • Title: "Recipe For Success!"
  • Border: The original display does not feature a border, but you could always add an ocean themed trimmer or complimentary patterned border if desired.
  • Decoration: 1) The Recipe Card. Write or print out your 'recipe for success' onto white card stock then mount it onto a piece of colored paper to make it stand out! Success in Mrs. Mooney's kindergarten class takes...

    A pinch of politeness,

    a touch of trustworthiness,

    a cup of caring,

    a filling of fairness,

    a heap of hardwork,

    and a dash of diligence!

    2) The Salt Water Taffy. We're not entirely certain how Lisa created her taffy, but if it were up to us, here's how we'd go about creating our own version. Lightly crunch scrap tissue paper gluing several pieces of the scrunched tissue to a dessert-sized paper plate in order to give it dimension. Once this is done, wrap the entire plate with a piece of colored tissue paper to create the taffy candy. To create the candy wrapping, you could a) wrap the plate with clear cellophane, gathering and securing the ends with a rubber band or ribbon, for an authentic 'wrapped candy' look, or b) simply cut pieces of card stock to look like the scrunched candy wrapping and glue them to the sides of the plate. 3) The Ocean Accents. To complete the board, Lisa added a dolphin cutout. You can purchase your own graphics from Lisa by clicking here or simply find other ocean themed accents to add!