MARS HILL, Maine — Although Fort Street Elementary School’s annual Christmas bulletin board contest didn’t happen this year due to SAD 42’s transition to remote learning, one group of students had managed to get a jump on the activity before schools closed.
Using humor to illustrate some COVID-19 protection ideas, students in instructor Kristen Lagasse’s classes produced several colorful bulletin boards.
Lagasse, who teaches grades 5 and 6 science and social studies, said her classes used materials such as rolls of toilet paper to make a snowman and a toilet paper tree, along with latex gloves and foam balls to make ornaments.
Some of their bulletin boards were titled “Baby, It’s COVID Outside,” “Merry Christmask” and “On the 14 Days of Quarantine My True Love Gave to Me.”
“My classroom door was an outhouse, poking fun of the toilet paper issue,” Lagasse said. “I used masks for the snowman scarf and toilet paper rolls for the arms and for the base of the tree.”
The classes also decorated school hallways, using gingerbread-cookie-shaped cutouts spaced six feet apart to help students follow distancing guidelines. Lettering urged people to stay “six treats apart.”
Lagasse said she and her students enjoyed the project, and hopes next year the entire school can take part in the contest again.
