Bulletin Boards Galore

Hello again!

In my first post, I showed you my classroom as a blank slate.  I'll do posts on each of the larger projects I've completed for my classroom, starting with the bulletin boards.

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I knew I wanted to use fabric for the backgrounds.  Here's what I've found:

Advantages: doesn't fade, won't show holes from staples or push-pins, lasts for many years

Disadvantages: more expensive, can't be changed out easily

I took quite a lot of time just waiting on fabric to go on sale at JoAnn Fabrics.  When I saw that the brand I wanted was 60-70% off, I jumped on it.  I also had a coupon that I was able to combine with the sale to make it an even better deal.  I made sure to choose fabrics that were in colors I liked  and would be able to use for multiple years.  I also made sure the prints weren't over the top, I didn't want to grow tired of them. I'm really happy that I didn't choose seasonal or crazy colors or prints.  I still love every fabric that I chose and I've left them up over this summer so that I can use them next year as well.

These are the colors that I chose - light greys, whites, and greens.  I wanted my classroom to be calming.  There is so much dark wood throughout the room that I wanted to make sure to brighten it up!  The contact paper on the right is from The Dollar Tree and was used in a different project, but I think that it coordinates well with the other colors.

The back doors: 11 yards of fabric alone!  I chose the light grey bird print to liven it up and to use as a neutral.  I wanted to be able to use many different colors of posters or accents in years to come and not have to change them out.  The boards above it have the light green polka dot fabric to add a little bit of color.

The 6 doors on the left have student coat and backpack hooks behind them, so it was a natural placement to have the word wall.  Students were then able to see that 'their' cabinets were the ones with the word wall.  I made the letter circles myself (they'll be available on Teachers Pay Teachers one day soon).  The picture on the right shows what my back wall looked like on the last day of school. I'll get a better picture for you!  There are punctuation signs on the top left, the word wall on the left doors, math signs on the top right, and empty doors that held ever-changing content posters and a math word wall on the bottom doors.

 I hope you've enjoyed the journey of my back bulletin board wall!  How did you set up your word wall this year?  

There are more classroom updates to come, stay tuned!

Ms. Frisch

First Look

Hello new readers!

Here's a little bit of information about myself.

I'm a 2nd grade teacher at a small elementary school in Ohio and this year (2016-2017) will be my second year of teaching.  My school has an ED unit that services students for the entire district, so we are both fortunate and very busy all the time!  There are two teachers per grade in my building so having students with severe emotional and behavioral outbursts is a given every year.  That being said, it has given me experiences that I know have made me a better teacher.  Instead of a transition into my first year of teaching it was a full-blown immediate drowning sensation at the start of the year.  I truly feel that my safe haven throughout all of it was based in my firm-rooted belief that a organization can fix everything.  Whether that's true or not, at least it helped me survive my first year and I already have a constantly evolving list of new teaching practices, centers, organization hacks, and crafts for next year.  I'm viewing this blog as a way to share all of the new projects I try out.  Think of it like a living Pinterest success vs. fail blog (haha!).  To get started, I'll share a few pictures of what my classroom looked like when I entered it for the first time.

The first view of my classroom.  I remember thinking it was... small, tall ceilings, TONS of bulletin boards, and that it had a huge non-magnetic slate blackboard along my entire side wall.  It needed COLOR!

My back wall - lots of natural light and the frames above would be great for posters, if only I was tall brave enough to reach them.  The two trapezoid tables were later taken by the district and replaced by a massive kidney table for small groups.  Completely unexpected! 

The BIGGEST BONUS of my room was that the previous teacher had retired and left tons of materials for me to use.  The saint-of-a-woman left her class library books behind for me underneath the purple butcher paper.

Behind 6 of the doors along the back wall there are hooks for the students.  This is actually a picture AFTER I used Goo-Gone to remove red and white name tag stickers that were on top of the Sharpie markers.  Someone wrote with Sharpie on top of beautiful hardwood.  It was blasphemous!  Needless to say I got that off as soon as I could and then later used a magic eraser to remove the Sharpie as well.

So, what did you think?  What did you see when you walked into your first classroom?  Leave your answers in the comments below.  Keep your eyes peeled for future posts of the transformation my classroom made throughout my first year of teaching.

Ms. Frisch