New Decor Coming to A Classroom Near You

Well...if you live close to me that is!  HAA HAA!!

So far I have a new love seat cover that is being tie dyed with purple dye by The Math Fairy.  She is my partner in crime!!  I have my eye on a new carpet for my classroom because I figured the other one has LITERALLY seen enough blood and guts and it is time to move on.  I just need to find one cheap enough for me to afford and that will accommodate about 24 or 25 second graders.  If you know of any sites that I can look at, PLEASE leave me a link in the comment section!!

This past week I printed off and laminated my new classroom decor that incorporates all of the colors of the rainbow since the teacher that had the room before me painted the coat rack a bright green and the shelves the color of 'strawberry fields' which I translate into a hot pinkish color of red.  Very odd.  And then, the trim is all done in purple.  I was able to repaint the shelves a pretty teal color and had planned on painting the coat rack, but I just ran out of steam.  So I just gave up and I throw all of the colors together!!

We went to the hardware store today to get 3 new cinder blocks so that I can add another shelf to my classroom library.  My husband is busy painting them outside as I type right now.  At one point I had the cinder blocks wrapped with material to look like presents, but have no desire to go through that process again....so my daughter and I picked out a beautiful purple color.  I kept sending my daughter outside to take pictures of the blocks being painted with Kilz and then with the purple paint, but my husband and son just never seemed to really get started.  Men!  What do you do with them?  We finally just gave up. So, here is a picture of them ready to paint with just a smidgen of my daughter's finger.  Great eye candy, I know!

I've spent a LOT of time browsing the web looking for neat ideas....living on Pinterest.  (I'll let you in on a secret--I have 2 Pinterest addresses.  One for Best Practices and one that I am reformatting for Charts N Chit Chat and you are welcome to follow both!)  My other favorite of course, is Amazon, because if you've read any of my blog posts you know that I hate to go into stores and shop.  By the time I get done going through a store my anxiety level is up, my back and legs hurt because the Fibromyalgia, and I've usually had to wrangle a couple of kids, too.  So...Amazon, in my point of view, is the bomb!!  Here are some of the things I am looking into and remember you can always click on the pic and go read more about the products I found:

I am REALLY interested in this because my dry erase boards are REALLY scratched up and you can't erase the marker residue off of them anymore.  Does anyone have any experience with this kind of paint?  Does it work??

I love the idea of incorporating this and wish I had enough energy to try it on some cabinets at school.  I think that would be a great way to organize memos and such that I need to be able to grab on the run.

I've seen this around for years and know of teachers that repainted their chalkboards, but I had no idea that you could use it to paint on the regular wall!  Pretty cool!!

I already ordered 2 cans of this glow in the dark paint after seeing the picture on Pinterest showing the glow in the dark planters. To be honest...I am REALLY wishing I could figure out how to use the planter idea in my classroom for days when our power goes out at school <someone is always running into a transformer it seems> or just to turn the lights off and have some ambiance!!  If you have any ideas on how to incorporate some glow in the dark features, leave me a comment and let me know!

Also, just a reminder...don't forget to go by our newest collaborative blog for 2nd and 3rd grade teachers--or if you don't teach those grades, send the link to a friend.  There is a huge giveaway going on right now and there will be about a month of freebies given away, too!  You won't want to miss it.  Just click below to to check it out.

Thanks for coming by!!

Color My Word Classroom Decor

Anyone that knows me, knows that I love COLOR!!!  I found this really cute set of backgrounds and started experimenting with my MS Publisher to see what all I could do.  Throw in a little bit of Power Point here and there for some work on the graphics, and this is what I came up with!

ZB Manuscript at TpT

D'Nealean Manuscript at TpT

Here is a collage of the D'Nealean set.  The ZB set looks just like this.  Altogether there is at least 230 pages of materials that can be printed.  I love this set so much that is has me SERIOUSLY thinking about printing and laminating and putting last year's Tie Dye Set into storage!  Anyway, I thought I would share this with you.  It is great eye candy!!

Oh, I almost forgot.  Here is a mystery freebie that goes with the set if you can use it!

P.S.  The Tie Dye Set from last year got a serious rehab, so you may want to check it out also!!

View of a Room

I haven't had a chance to share any pictures of my room yet, so I thought I would.  Why is it that just about the time you think you have your room set up, everything gets all switched and you have to start over?  Well....this is what it is happening now that we decided to combine classes and departmentalize.  So....out of all of the changes being made in my room, here are a few pictures that I felt that I could share.  hehe  My 'make over crew'  <i.e. anyone that can hang anything straight as I am well known for putting things up crooked> will be coming in soon to do the make over over the make over!!!


I have to admit that decorating this room is a slow process since the building is 50 years old.  I have all sorts of nooks and crannies and cracks to cover up!!

My Word Wall bordered with greenery and wildflowers <which covers the paint that is peeling!>.

This was taken one night just before leaving so the blinds are pulled, but this shows my bandanna curtains which are a cinch to make, but not so easy to hang due to the humidity in my room.  We finally hot glued the hooks for those suckers to the wall!  I'll do a post soon on what we did to make them and get them up there.

This shows my writing topics <which I believe I got from Lori Rosenberg> and my behavior chart guitar.  My partner and I decided just today to change the behavior chart and deviate from the school's choices so that we could be more positive, so that will be changing also....but I love my guitar.

Here is the inside of my door which is actually the only piece of my tie dye collection to make the photo shoot!  After the revamping of my room I'll post more pictures!

Maybe this will give you an idea or two or three...

Tie Dye Classroom Pack

I am so excited to share with you and show you my Tie Dye classroom pack!!!  I started out just creating it for my own classroom and then decided to share it with you guys, too!

When I moved into the classroom I am in now, I wasn't quite sure what direction to go in.  The coat rack was painted 'Strawberry Fields' red, the shelves were 'bright sea foam green' and the borders of the word wall and white board was 'deep mysterious purple'.  I couldn't figure out how to decorate it, so I just through more color in!  I figured it couldn't clash.....it already had quite a bit of color in it!!

So, this year I am continuing my endeavor to 'throw color' everywhere and so I decided to make some tie dye materials to go into my room.  I kept adding....and adding.....and adding as I thought of more to include and ended up with over 330 pages of material!!  I can't wait to get my pennants hung up and redo my wordwall.  Here are some pictures of the materials for you to take a gander at!