Perfect your classroom theme with downloadable and printable classroom decor theme bundles! Each pack includes all the themed decor you need to pull off a complete classroom theme for the 2023-2024 school year, including decorations, organization tools and more.
Choose from the best themes for the classroom from pre-school themes to kindergarten themes and options for the rest of the elementary school grades that are cute and complete your classroom decor, saving you serious time on your planning.
What Is a Classroom Theme?
This may sound a little obvious, but bear with us for a second here. A classroom theme is typically the topic or idea that the decor is centered around.
For example, you might plan a jungle classroom theme by setting up faux foliage, adding animal cutouts to the wall and setting up a bulletin board with monkeys and bananas that says "We're Bananas About Learning."
But theming a classroom doesn't have to stop at the decorations. A good theme can open up a world of opportunities for exploring important topics from plumbing the depths of the ocean with an under the sea theme to exploring different ecosystems with the rainforest.
Likewise, your theme could focus on a social emotional skill such as kindness or cooperation, providing supports that encourage students to improve the skill throughout the school year.
Do I Need a Classroom Theme?
We're going to come straight out and say it! No; you don't need a classroom theme. There are many successful teachers out there who skip this option entirely, and their students still feel valued while learning.
Then again, theming your room has plenty of advantages we'd be remiss in ignoring. Here are a few reasons the teachers on our Teach Starter team are #TeamTheme!
- Themes make decorating easy. We aren't all interior decorators, and hey, teachers can experience summer brain drain too! Having a theme to your decor can make it easier to set up your room because a lot of the decisions are made already.
- You get to show your personality. So much of what we do day-to-day in the classroom is dictated by the state, the district and our admin, but a classroom theme is a good way to bring something we love into our rooms! Mad about monsters? Wild about woodland creatures? Tickled by tigers? Bring that into your classroom! Not only will you feel more at home in the space, but it's a good way to forge connections with your students.
- Themes are fun. There's no question that a good theme can be fun to put together as a teacher, but we're not just talking about the joy. you can get from the process. Your students will get a kick out of it too!
- Themes create community. A good classroom theme pulls everything together and can help you as you work to establish that classroom community feel at the start of the school year.
- Themes can kickstart learning. As we mentioned before, a theme to your room doesn't have to simply be about decor. It can also be the doorway to an entire year's worth of learning about a particular topic.
Camping is a popular classroom theme that features fun woodland animals.
How Do I Choose a Good Classroom Theme?
With all that in mind, choosing a good theme for your classroom is going to be highly individual. What you're drawn to is very different from the teacher down the hall, and you're likely teaching entirely different topics too.
That said, there are some important things we like consider when we're picking a new theme that you might find helpful.
- How much work will this be to set up? You probably do not need to be reminded that there's a lot to do before the first day of school and not a lot of time to get it all done. And yet here we are with a gentle reminder! Sometimes the best-planned theme is just not realistic to execute in the time you have to set up your classroom! (But hey ... there's always next year!).
- Will it work in the space? If you're heading into a new classroom, you may want to consider whether or not your plans will work within the constraints of the space. Is there enough room for that fun palm tree for your jungle theme? Do you have a bright yellow door that you aren't allowed to paint and need to account for?
- Will it last beyond the year? We use our classroom theme resources year after year after year (lamination is our friend), but as Teach Starter Senior Resource Producer Randi Smith points out, themes that focus on pop culture phenomena like a popular movie tend to lose their luster after a year or two as trends change.
- Will it stand up if you change grade levels? We've been there. You finish out a series of years in kindergarten, and suddenly you've been asked to move to third. Classroom decor is something that we often use year after year, and being able to carry it over into a new grade is important if you're in a school where teachers are moved around a lot.
