New Classroom: Happy Decorating Challenge!

 I recently had the joy of changing classrooms. I enjoy getting the chance to redecorate and organize. This new room allowed me to come up with new, fun ideas for my students. However, the new room had a different layout that was somewhat of a challenge. There was no "front of the classroom." Two walls had double doors, another wall held a window and a door, and the fourth wall had cubbies screwed into it. Thankfully, maintenance came to the rescue and removed the cubbies from the wall. This wall was painted yellow so when the cubbies were removed, I was left with a rectangle of white wall. I quickly mixed up whatever paint I had on hand and did my best to color match the wall before I hung up a white board and a calendar. I also created an area to hang up my students' art work.

The "Before" Wall.

                          The "After" Wall.

I painted the front of the cubbies yellow before placing it vertically in an awkward corner. 

I like the idea of having a tree in my classroom. I had one in my room at a previous school and the kids really seemed to like it. This whole classroom has weird angles which allowed for a perfect spot for a tree. I like using lights in my decor, so I strung somes lights on the tree.

Now to tackle the window that leads to a hallway. What can I say, it's an old building. I really didn't want to hang curtains so I used a table cloth left over from my neices birthday. It had a solid back and a shimmery front. I pulled the pieces apart and hung up the solid back, then I placed fish and various other aquarium decor on it. I laid the shimmery piece over the front to give it the illusion of being in water. I added a string of lights. 

Since I like to use lights, I decided to make two tabletop lamps out of souvenir cups that my boys got from a zoo several years ago. All I did was put a battery operated string light inside. I wanted to use white lights but I realized I only had multi lights left in my supply cabinet.

My student are really enjoying our new space. Especially when it is a rainy or cloudy day and we have all the string lights on. Sometimes, they will just stand under the tree and gaze up at the lights in wonder. 

Door Decorations, Bulletine Boards, and Hallway Decor

Who doesn't love to decorate Doors, Bulletine Boards, and hallways? Well, I do. It can be somewhat of a challenge to come up with knew ideas all the time. I have included several ideas in other posts, but I thought I would throw some together in this one. I will keep the writing to a minimum since the pictures are self explanatory. 

The bees are made out of water bottles.

As you can see, some of these are from different themes we have had to do, such as Bees, Zoo, Halloween, Christmas, Fall, Sports, and Dr. Seuss. Of course, the best part of decorating the halls is when we use our students art work. Nothing beats that!

Halloween Hallway

     I am not a big fan of Halloween. I am more of a Fall Festival person. I love hay rides, bon fires/ weenie roasts, and family friendly events. However, it's a big deal in my department. Coming up with creative ways to decorate while trying not to duplicate previous years is always a challenge.  This past Halloween was no different. 

    One of my new found talents is drawing and painting. I dabbled in the arts but never realized that I was some what good at it. The following are some ideas that I worked on. I am not including the areas that my co-workers decorated. I am only showing the ones that I did or that I helped with.

    We decided to call our hallway "Creepy Hallow." I made this poster on the back of bulletine board paper and then put a coat of Modge Podge on it. I do most of my projects on the back of our bulletine paper because I do not have any other paper available. I use what we have and hope for the best. 

    I then created a coffin with a 3D hand coming out of it. I cut out a coffin shape from the black bulletine board paper. Next, I searched for and printed out a wood grain image. I glued it to the coffin. Using a piece of cardboard, I traced out my hand and arm. After cutting it out, I wrapped toilet paper around it and taped the end behind the coffin.

    I made two posters last year that I got alot of compliments on, so I hung them back up this year. The first one depicts trick or treaters on Halloween night. The other one is a for farm fresh pumpkins. The leaves on it are fabric.

    It wouldn't be halloween without adding some corn stalks. These were very easy to make. I made most of them by rolling brown paper to make the stalk. Then I ripped strips of the same paper and taped them to the stalks. My co-worker had a corn cobb craft so I made several copies on the printer and placed them on the stalk as well. An easier way to make these is to use wrapping paper tubes. I did not have any available at the time so I had to make my own. I am saving any wrapping paper tubes to make more corn stalks next year. On a side note, wrapping paper tubes come in handy when you need to store your posters. I just roll them up and place in the tube. I then label the tube and place them in a wrapping paper conatiner.

    Last, but not least, I had to decorate my classroom doors. On the first door, I made a spider, pumpkin, ghost, and monster out of construction paper. The other  decorations on the door are crafts made by my students. The second door had over forty fall leaves that I cut out. The branches are actually 3D, as well as the swing. It's hard to see in the picture, but there is a glowing moon in the window of the door. I cut out a circle from cardboard. Then taped a string of battery operated lights to it. I wrapped it in yellow paper and adhered it to the inside of my window.

    I have no idea how we are going to decorate next year. I have feeling we will be exploring ideas as early as spring. 

Classic Christmas Decor!

     My absolute favorite holiday is Christmas. I love celebrating the birth of Jesus. I also love to decorate. The twinkling lights, a plethora of snowmen, nativity scenes, and fake snow bring me such joy. The great part about decorating is that, not only do I get to spruce up my house, but I also get to have fun at work.

    My co-workers and I decided to decorate our department in a classic Christmas movie theme. I drew out the characters and one of my co-workers helped me paint them. We probably put in almost seventy hours to get them all made. My other co-worker set them in a scene.  All the characters were drawn on the back of bulletine board paper. Once they were painted, I coated them in a layer of Modge Podge and added a touch of glitter to each one.

    The first one we made was "Frosty the Snowman." We addd more detail later (not shown in picture).

        The next one is "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" by Dr. Seuss.

    The longest wall in our department is dedicated to "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer."

    We had some windows that we weren't sure what to do with, so we put the Heat Miser and Snow Miser on them.

    We had to include the famous leg lamp from "A Christmas Story." To make the lamp shade work, it had to be cut in half and then glued to a piece of cardboard. We then attached a battery operated light under the shade. 

    One of my co-workers designed our office door with Snoopy. She attached a plush snoopy to the dog house by using fishing line. The dog house is made from cardboard.

    I had a lot of fun making this last wall. I painted a tree and put real lights on it. I made the star by cutting out a star shape on cardboard. Then I taped a strand of battery operated lights onto it and wrapped the star in yellow tissue paper. Next, I printed out a star clipart and taped it to the front. I wrapped various sizes of cardboard in Christmas paper and taped them under the tree. After painting the fireplace, I used packing foam from our IT department to make the stonework and mantal.  I have since added lights to the fireplace.

    

    The last area we decorated was the playroom/therapy room. We set up four trees and added various clipart style images thoughtout the room. These are just a couple of them.

    Being on a budget can make it hard to decorate. However, with a little teamwork, we made a fun Christmas atmosphere that the kids love.

 

Small Upgrades to a Dull Classroom

 I have recently taken the time to redecorate my classroom.  With reduced hours and no students because of the Coronavirus, I have had plenty of time to do some fun projects to revamp my room.  One of my favorite projects is my puzzle board.  I am always on the look out for ways to help with student behavior.  Each day that my class behaves (for the most part), they can earn a puzzle piece.  I bought a few 24 piece puzzles and traced them out on brown paper.  I used scrap booking pages to decorate the background.  I started to use this about a week before we had to close our school's doors.  The kids were really excited to see what the picture would turn out to be. I can't wait to use it when we reopen.

 I have two sets of these shelves in my room and I really didn't like how they looked before.  The brackets were a cold looking metal and the shelves were plain.  A co-worker suggested sprucing them up a bit. I painted the trim around the shelves this pretty light blue color and I painted the brackets in a gold tone.  It really adds a touch of warmth to my room.

 This mirror was a a dark brown wood.  It was slightly broken and most likely would have ended up in the trash. I rescued it and added the same paint used on my shelves.  I added these cute foam dogs to it since my classroom is decorated in a dog theme.

I have really enjoyed having the time to redecorate my classroom but I can't wait to have students in my room again.