When I had fifth graders, our big board at the beginning of the year stated we were 'On the Road to Middle School'.  This is a perfect way to start sending your little ones on their way to maturity.  Use these ideas, and send in your own!

*Put road signs around the room.

*Collect postcards from places around the country/world.  Join a postcard exchange and set up a bulletin board to display the ones you receive.

*Display a large map of the country and have students put pushpins into the locations they read about in their books.

*Use the quote 'Put Your Best Foot Forward' or 'A Journey of a Thousand Miles Starts With One Step'.

*Become inspired by Route66, and do a vintage roadtrip look for your room.  Use pictures of cheezy road side attractions and lots of neon.

*Back your bulletin boards with free maps for AAA.

*Create 'passports' for each student (perhaps as their portfolio), and have them fill it out after each benchmark throughout the year.

*Make suitcases out of small pizza boxes (perhaps the local restaurant will donate?) and have students fill it with items at the beginning of the year-a time capsule, if you will.  Or use it as a scrapbook container, where they can tuck/store their momentos during the year.

*Use license plates as nametags for desks and your sub tub.  Use this site to design a plate for each student.  Simply choose the state desired, type in the name (you can adjust the size of the font and the spacing), approve, then click to enlarge the sample picture.  Right click, save the image to the your computer and paste it into a Word or Powerpoint document to print!

Silly Roadsigns- Great list of posters-print on cardstock and laminate.

Passport Around the World- Create or order a passport for your students, and use the following stamps to 'travel' around the world.  Students can earn stamps for reading books, getting top grades on quizzes/tests/projects or other milestones!
Africa Stamps
Asia Stamps
Eurasia Stamps
Latin America Stamps
North America Stamps