Cute & Simple Classroom Decorations

So I am not always the best at decorating but I am creative! My classroom colors are what I call "Teacher Colors," which are Blue, Red, Brown, Green, Yellow. I found fabric at Hobby Lobby that consist of these colors in 4 different patterns.

Here is the link to the fabrics in my classroom:

Striped

http://shop.hobbylobby.com/products/apt-renditions-stripe-fabric/

Flower

http://shop.hobbylobby.com/products/apt-renditions-daisy-fabric/

Polka Dots

http://shop.hobbylobby.com/products/apt-renditions-polka-dot-fabric/

Argyle

http://shop.hobbylobby.com/products/apt-renditions-argyle-fabric/

The great thing about using things from Hobby Lobby in the classroom is that they use patterns in other areas such as scrapbooking paper and ribbon. I took advantage of the scrapbooking paper. I have made direction signs, notebook covers, labels and even flowers and apples  for my classroom.

Here are the flowers that I made to decorate my classroom. They were super simple. I took 2 pages of each pattern or color scrapbook pages and laminated them, then I used my school's Di-Cuts to cut out flowers. As you can see I used both the big flowers and small flowers to fill in the center. I then took dall rods and glued them to the back of the flowers and stuck them into foam that I put into different colored flower pots that I painted and decorated with matching ribbon. It does not show it in the picture but I bought a bag of white rocks to cover up the foam and finish off the flowers. I have all 5 of these spread around my room and they look really cute. It took about an 3 hours to make these from beginning to end.

Another thing I made for my classroom were apples with our Core Knowledge sayings on them. Every classroom at my school has a door painted onto the door. My first 2 years of teaching I was not sure how I could decorate it but tried by puting our Core Knowledge sayings that were printed out on plain old piece of white paper and stuck on the tree. It wasn't cute but it worked. I then decided to make apples out of the scrapbook paper that matched my classroom using Di-Cuts. I then printed off ALL of the first grade CK sayings and put them on the apples, laminated them and put them on my tree. We refer to the tree throughout the year so it's great for me that it not matches my room but it's a usable space. 

Calendars

For some reason I love calendars! I have 6 different calendars hanging in my classroom; 2 regular calendars that I use, 1 calendar that we use for morning meeting and 3 calendars that I made. I've posted pictures below.


Cork Board Calendar: I saw this calendar in one of those little artsy sheets you see hanging in certain areas when shopping in Hobby Lobby! So I made it and made it to match the colors and materials that are in my classroom. It was pretty simple to make. (I can send a tutorial if anyone is interested.)


Here is the front of Cork Board calendar:

Here is the back of Cork Board calendar:

White Board Calendar: Another calendar that I made out of scrapbook papers that match my classroom deco! I also made a similar and smaller calendar that is just the numbers of the dates (example: 12 - 1 - 11)

Both calendars are very useful in the classroom and student friendly. At the end of the day my students LOVE to  be able to change the calendars to the next days date.

First Post!

This is my first post. I've tried using Xanga but it doesn't do want I want it to do. Anyways, let me begin by telling you about myself. My name is Michelle Aker and I am a first grade teacher in Hobbs, NM. I have been teaching since 2008 and thoroughly love and enjoy what I do. I love teaching and I love working with children. I also enjoy reading blogs and finding new ideas to use in my classroom.