Decorating your classroom isn’t one of your most critical duties as a teacher but if I’m going to spend 40-60 hours a week in my classroom, I want it to be a colorful, attractive environment! Here is what I’ve done with my classroom:
I feel very lucky to have windows! I know not everybody does. These curtains were very simple to make. I cut strips from scrap fabric. I sewed the scrap strips together into looong thin strips of fabric. I used pinking shears on the sides that weren’t sewn so they wouldn’t fray. Then I draped the strips around the edges of the windows and fasted them up with staples (sorry, Mr. Custodian!)
I love books and I want my students to love them, too! I try to make my classroom library a fun and inviting place. I put fabric on the back of my book shelves so I wouldn’t have to see the ugly back side of the wood. I got baskets of all shapes and sizes at a thrift store to put on top of the shelves. Over each shelf I hung a fake window. I took old picture frames from a thrift store, spray painted them red, put in blue paper strips to look like glass pane dividers, and then suspended them with fishing line. It’s a fun way to carve out and define a space in your classroom.
I organize my desks into table groups and like to identify each table group by color. I made mobiles out of paper airplanes (made of scrapbook paper) and white cardstock clouds strung together with a needle and thread. Each string of airplanes and clouds is tied at the top to an embroidery hoop. Making these was time consuming but I love the final product.
There is also a yellow one and a green one but I don’t have a shot of all of them.
I save the bulletin boards inside my room for anchor charts but outside in the hall I like to do something really creative every year. When I went into school (in July) to put this one up, the workroom (with all the butcher paper and Cricut machine) was locked! I had to get creative. The white background is just plain copier paper and the kites are made of scrapbook paper.
Hannah Braun is a former teacher with 8 years of experience in the classroom and a master's degree in early childhood education. She designs engaging, organized classroom resources for 1st-3rd grade teachers.
