Border Mayhem

Getting started.

Some things are better in theory. One of those things just happened to be creating cheap and dimensional borders. I saw a wonderful idea on Pintrest. It was a cute scrunchy border. The border was made with paper. I thought, "I can do that." I wouldn't even have to spend any money. Problem was that my school didn't have the color of paper that I wanted. Well, that's okay. I saw some plastic table cloths at Walmart that should work just as well. The table cloths come in packs of two for a mere $0.97. I bought a couple pink ones for a background and some bright green to use as a border. To make the borders, I removed the table cloths, but didn't unfold them. I straightened the edges the best that I could. I took a box knife and cut through all of the layers. I didn't measure. I just cut strips that were about 2" wide lengthwise. (The wider you cut the strips, the fluffier the border.) It doesn't really matter if they are straight or not. I can get about five strips from the folded cloths. I'm ready to get started, so I just separate me a strip. I scrunch the end up a bit and staple it to the bulletin board. I continue to just scrunch and staple my way around the board. You can scrunch as much or as little as you want. I just played with it until I got the result that I was looking for. All good, right? Well, if you have hours to spare, sure. It took me about four hours to do two small boards. Probably wouldn't have taken as long, but my hands and arms kept cramping up. The result is adorable, but it is a lot of work. Music helps a bit, but not much. Maybe if I would have had a helper or someone to talk to it would have been better. Three trips to the classroom and I had two small boards and a majority of a very large board finished. I divided the large board with the border into three sections, so it is taking a while. Don't get me wrong. I love the results, but don't even try it if you don't plan on leaving the border up all year and have a ton of time with nothing better to do than scrunch and staple.

Two boards down and it only cost me a couple of dollars.

All finished.

The Great Furniture Rearrangement

Rearranging furniture is a two person job. Now that I have said this, I moved my classroom furniture yesterday. Of course, I did it by myself. Never a good idea. My thought process was that I wanted to have my desk in the opposite corner from where the previous teacher had it. Well, that corner was currently occupied by a long table that held two student computers. A normal person would have taken those computers off and moved the table. Then, said normal person would reassemble the computers back on the table. I have never proclaimed that I am normal. Computers come with a lot of wires. I just didn't want to deal with all of that jumbled mess. I did the next best thing. (I use the term best loosely here.) I unhooked all of the wires that were attaching the computers to the wall, and I scooted that computer laden table across the room. By some miracle, that rickety old table, that I am sure was built by some poor spouse of a female teacher, held together. It was a little touch and go on those legs for a minute, but they all survived the move. 

Before

After

On to my desk! That desk may have looked small, but it was solid wood. I shimmied and twisted and turned it. A few minutes later it was in the perfect spot. That left my computer and its table on wheels (yay) to move. Did I mention my computer is hooked to the SmartBoard. The SmartBoard has it's own tangled web of wires. If I want my desk and computer on the opposite side of the room, I will have to run the wires back up into the ceiling tiles and across to where I want them. Don't worry, I was aware of this beforehand. It was just my luck that an experienced teacher was in the building. I moseyed my way down to her end of the hall before I got started. My luck could not have been any better. She had just finished moving her SmartBoard and all of it's wiring. She gave me brief rundown of how to do it. Next step, call the hubby, who graciously accepted my invitation to help me move all of those wires on his next day off. Too bad I couldn't have been patient enough to wait for him before moving that desk and computer table.

What's next? Tomorrow, I have the day off from my other job. I will be going over to start on bulletin boards and organizing shelves again. I will follow that up with a visit on Friday to get all those wires moved. I am sure Friday is going to be full of all kinds of fun and adventure.

Visuals Are Everything

Picture this, I'm sitting at home trying to think about how I want to use the space in my new classroom. I can't really remember how much wall space I have. I know I have several bulletin boards, and I would like to lay out a plan for how I am going to use them. I can't remember much about the details of the room. It's too early in the summer to start trial and error decorating. I'm not even sure the custodian is done with all of their summer cleaning. Then I remember, I took a picture of each wall in my new classroom. I did it as a split second decision, but those four photos have become my planning board. I started thinking about how I would use the cabinet and shelf space for organization. (I WILL stay organized.) I had already sorted out some of the books and manipulatives while I was there, but I wanted everything to have a place and a label. I thought about printing out the picture and writing on it, but didn't want to waste the ink in my printer. I decided to pizap the photo. Pizap is a free and easy to use photo shop site. Check it out here www.pizap.com. So this is what I came up with. The shelves aren't actually organized as the labels say, but using this map, they will be. (Note to others: You might want to move the furniture out of the way.)

What else can I do from the comfort of home? Well, I have three more pictures. I began pizapping the others. I found that this was giving me a great perspective on the use of the room. I could insert other pictures like the one of a chart I found on pinterest. Like this one http://pinterest.com/pin/63050463503709733/. Then, I decided I could play around with what I wanted my bulletin boards to look like on Microsoft Publisher. I got one roughly planned out and inserted that photo as well. By the time I was finished, my classroom was pretty much designed. All I need to do now is get the supplies I need and get started. I didn't put in every poster and sign, but I have a good idea of how my walls will be laid out now.
 

My plan for my word wall and marker board. I am going to put my desk in
the right corner, so I want to add a cork board to hang pictures and things on.

This one shows the board I designed on publisher and the picture from pinterest.

I haven't gone through all of my posters, but I plan on using this space
for some of them. Both halves of the bulletin board will be more wonderful
pinterest ideas. Stay tuned to see those in action.

Getting Started

Where to begin? That was the question I asked myself when I was handed the keys to my first classroom last month. I was fortunate enough to get a job at the school where I did my student teaching. I was doubly fortunate to get to teach third grade. That means I get to teach some of the same students I had last year during student teaching. I am already comfortable with the faculty and school policies. This turned out to be my perfect world. Now here I was standing in "my" classroom. Now what? The furniture is everywhere. Shelves are filled with "stuff". I don't even know where to begin. School is still two months away, but I am working at my other job all summer. I am going to have to get started and pace myself. 

The wall of shelves after I sorted and organized some things.
It's still not quite finished.

    

First things first, I plan. I need ideas. The school's theme this year is Peace, Love, and Learning. I googled phrases for bulletin boards. I googled clipart. I even googled fancy fonts. After all of that googling, I decided that I should probably think about what sort of things I wanted to do for classroom management. I want to make sure my classroom is a community. I want the students to be independent. Pinterest to the rescue. I got lots of great ideas there. How did teachers ever teach without the internet? I'll share the wonderful ideas I used and adapted as I put them into effect. I hope most of the techniques succeed, but I am sure there will be lots of trial, error, and adaptation going on along the way.