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I Almost Made it!

Classroom Decor Wednesday, July 31, 2013
At the end of the school year, I swore that I would avoid school during the ENTIRE month of July. Well, faced with a number of appointments next week, I decided it was time to go in and begin to plug away, bit by bit, at my classroom. I spent Monday and Tuesday in the classroom, planning a new set up for the classroom and unpacking a little here and a little there.

Here's what I started with on Monday: Look how clean and shiny those floors are!

We have to pack everything up at the end of each school year, so even though I didn't move this year, I still have a ton of unpacking to do. I hate the idea of packing and unpacking every year, but it does force to me to clean things out, which I like. I found hand sanitizer under my sink yesterday that had expired in 2007, which means that it's been sitting in that classroom for many more years than I have been there since I only arrived last year. Adios expired hand sanitizer!

I don't know why, but for me, the bulletin boards are always the first thing that I must do. I feel a terrible anxiety with unfinished bulletin boards. Needless to say, Monday's focus was unpacking, which meant that Tuesday's focus was, you guessed it, BULLETIN BOARDS!

After 8 years of teaching, I have an extensive list of bulletin board trim. This should stop me from purchasing new ones each year, but it doesn't! Since I'm doing an owl theme this year, I just HAD to have some owl border. Then I wanted new Dots on Turquoise Paisley Borders. Oh, and then I found this really cute border for my other board...

Five new bulletin board trims, plus the other 30+ sets that I already had, and I swear, the decision process was grueling! Since I don't like to have the same colors year after year, but wanted to stick to my theme in blues and greens, that meant buying new fadeless bulletin board paper. I don't change my paper during the year and fadeless paper seriously does not fade so I think it's worth the investment. In fact, when I went to take my awesome teal paper from last year down I realized that it still looked pretty awesome, so I just changed out the borders. I put five different borders up before I finally came to a decision. Boards decorated...check! Deciding what to put on them is a decision for another day...

Since I made a day of it, I also began to reorganize my classroom library, and as I was working on it and staring at the wall space above my ottomans, I had an epiphany! The open space would be PERFECT for my new owl posters. I can't begin to explain just how excited I was when this idea popped in to my head! I grabbed my command strips and got to work. I am thrilled with the results! See what you think: Whooooooo's ready to read?

After a couple of days in the classroom, I feel a bit less anxious about the upcoming year. I have a LOOOONG way to go, but at least I left yesterday with a sense of accomplishment and a really cute reading area! Posted by Rachel Joanne at 7:53 PM
