Decorating Your Classroom

Today I made my annual trip to the local teacher supply store. I love the way it smells in there! That store, libraries, and coffee shops are my three favorite-smelling places ever. Our teacher supply store even has a resident Min Pin to greet everyone!

We're on a pretty tight budget and I didn't want to spend a ton of money, but did want to freshen up my room a bit. I ended up spending about $25 on new bulletin board paper, a new border, new letters and two posters. I've used the same bulletin board paper/border/letters for all 6 years of teaching so far, so I think I earned some new stuff!

My life is complete--I found purple chevron bulletin border (our school colors are purple and gold)! I decided to do a teal background for my bulletin boards and black and white polka dot letters. I also got these two funny posters.

The poster that you can't quite see says (on one phone): "Bks R Lke Rly Lng Txt Msgs" and the other phone replies: "Rly?" I got a kick out of that one.

I already have some posters in my room. One says "Excuse Limit 0" and another is a picture of a cute frog looking pensive saying "There was homework?"

I prefer funny, witty, or sarcastic posters to cheesy or inspirational ones, just because I know my audience and the kids would prefer things like this.

I don't go hog wild with decorating in my room. I have a large bulletin board, that this year will be used as our Vocab. Word Wall. I have a small bulletin board at the front of the room that I will use this year as the Class News section, with announcements, school calendar, and classroom rules posted. The front wall of my room is taken up by my white board and Smart board. The back wall has student computers lining it, as well as some filing cabinets. The wall opposite my huge bulletin board is all windows.

Besides my pretty new bulletin board, I don't get into decorating my room too much. I want it to be colorful and pleasant but could never get as involved as elementary teachers do. Hats off to them, seriously. I could never put in that much time switching up my classroom decor according to the seasons. Two of my walls are painted purple and I have pretty colorful glass vases and fake flowers adorning my window sill. On my desk, I have some personal photos and frames, but nothing fancy.

I plan on going in to work in my room on Thurs. and will try to snap some pics.

So how do you decorate your room? Do you go all out? Change things up every season? Think less is more? Any good finds at the teacher supply store?