Classroom Updates Day One

In my seven years of teaching, I've had four classrooms. Changing classrooms is a lot like buying a house.  For everything you love, there is always something you hate.  

For me, it's my ugly, ugly green chalkboards.  My room has four huge ones.  This week I packed my bags and spent some times tackling and taming my green monsters.

My grade level and I weighed all our options about the green monsters before school ended and decided to go with contact paper. We considered paint, but that's messy and permanent and I'm the world's worst painter. So I purchased two large rolls of black contact paper from Amazon.  I also spotted various colors of contact paper at my local teacher store. 

The whole process took about six hours today.  I say that because you have to peel the packing of the paper in small little pieces and then smooth it out.  It's very tedious work.  I rewarded myself with a nice bacon cheeseburger and fries for lunch.  

Although the process was not what I would call fun or even enjoyable, it was worth it.  Here is my completed back wall. 

 Please don't judge the mess.  I'm being very vulnerable and real by showing you this pictures. ;) This picture right here is real life in my classroom folks.  

Also, I hate my primary book bins BUT they aren't broken and are still doing a fine job.  Would I like new ones? Of course, I would! BUT I'll replace them next summer.  Mine are from Ikea and I love them, I have had them for six years now and they are handling their daily beatings from ten-year-olds well.  I hear them have them in a funky and fun green that would be perfect for my room, but I am choosing to ignore the section they are in at my local Ikea for now.

I also bought a few rolls of dry erase contact paper so I can write down our homework and some of our learning targets.  Mainly these boards are used to display anchor charts and for my focus walls, so I wasn't really worried or bothered by covering them up.

 

Isn't my chevron border purdy? :) I got mine at Michaels.  Who would have thought, right?  The border is from Trend and you can find it here on their website. 

Other parts of the room are coming along too.  My husband is off for ten days in August and I'd rather be hanging out with him on our staycation than getting my classroom ready.  So I've gone in a bit lately to unpack, cover my bulletin boards, and to tame those green monsters.

 

This year I covered my bulletin board and my cursive alphabet bulletin board with wrapping paper.  I really loved the grid lines to cut on and since I don't change them out often, I think it will work out nicely.   I was able to get large rolls of black and hot pink wrapping paper at Hobby Lobby.  

I also unpacked and labeled most of my literature circle books. :)  Since our storage is exposed, I need it to be cute and functional. The green, pink, and blue baskets came from Big Lots this summer.

Everything else on the shelf has a home somewhere else.  I don't use these shelves all that often because of how tall they are and because you can see everything.  However, they are good for things like literature circle books that you don't use all year round but still need quick access to when you do need them. 

Overall, I'm about 70% packed and hope to be open house ready next week so I can savor these last few weeks of summer!