Here it is… one of the biggest questions in all of youth ministry: How do I create an appealing space for teens? There are many large churches that pay good money for their youth ministries to have brand new, state-of-the-art, top-notch youth centers. [If you belong to a church that is considering such a project, we would love to help you. The biggest piece of advice we can offer in preparation for that effort is COLLABORATE. If you are struggling to get buy-in for a dedicated youth center, par
I have been meaning to update my Read and Sequence pack for a while now. This pack is a combination of all of my Read and Sequence...
Create a staffroom that teachers and staff want to go to with our 10 cheap and cheerful ways to update the school staffroom.
Stop taking away recess and using other punishments to control your students. Find success with 10 powerful classroom management strategies!
Dorm room decor ideas to get you ready for back-to-school season. 36 before and after snapshots of dorm rooms that are actually cute!
Radio personality and Jaggad designer Rebecca Judd has shared a rare look inside her gorgeous family home. Judd, who is married to AFL star Chris Judd, took to social media to give her 880k Instagram followers an update on their ongoing renovations to the five-bedroom home.
27 GORGEOUS DESK MAKEOVER IDEAS SHOWCASING HOW PAINT AND IMAGINATION CAN TOTALLY CHANGE YOUR FURNITURE'S LOOK! Can you believe September is just around the corner? Many kids are already back to school. And come September 3rd after Labor Day, all the kiddos are returning to school here in Canada. It has me thinking of a
There are three kinds of teacher-decorators: those who were born for Pinterest, those who can’t, and all the ones in between (such as the broke, the tired, and the I-have-no-time-to-decorate). However, making a classroom appeal to middle and high school students doesn’t HAVE to involve serious crafting or expensive, time-intensive projects. Check out these tips from me and Bonnie from Presto Plans as you prepare your classroom for the fall (or at any time of year that you want to give it a boost!) You might also like Sara's more recent blog post, Inside My Farmhouse Classroom Makeover. 1. Have a color scheme (if you can) Sara: My principal gave each teacher the paint for one accent wall, so that shade of turquoise inspired the rest of my blue decor: milk crates, bulletin board borders, etc. It helped unify the room to make it look pulled-together instead of random. I've also learned about the importance of contrast. Even a full-blown rainbow color palette can look clean and cohesive (instead of cluttered) if you pair it with black or white to balance it out. Bonnie: If you are looking for inspiration for colors that look great together, check out this Pinterest board. There are lots of combinations that will help you choose colors when you are shopping for classroom materials. 2. Stick to a few favorite fonts Sara: Just like businesses create a brand, you are creating a classroom “look” or persona that you will be known for... or, at least a mood you will create. (Friendly? Professional? Fun? Minimalist?) Try to pick a few fonts that most of your labels, signs, and other wall-hangings will consistently use. For example, I used the Google font Crushed to make and laminate labels for my whiteboard (see below), along with mint-colored painter's tape. 3. Make your classroom library a focal point Bonnie: Your class library should draw students in and works well as the focal point for any English classroom. Here are a few things you can do to make your library stand out: Give bookshelves a makeover by rolling them a new coat of paint and/or taking the shelves out and attaching wallpaper or scrapbook paper to the back. Put a few floating shelves on the walls near your library area where you can feature particular novels recommended by students. Add comfortable, flexible seating near a library to make it more welcoming. These items can be more expensive, so shop around online or scour garage sales until you find seating that may work. Use old books as decorations! When a book is unusable, find a way to repurpose it. One easy way to do this is to cut out the pages and write a reading-inspired quote in black permanent marker on top of the page. Frame the page and put it on your bookshelf! Sara: If your classroom library is small, nonexistent, or needs some attention, check out this blog post for more ideas about how to strengthen it. 4. Display student work Bonnie: Use student work as decor by making a framed gallery wall. All you have to do is pick up some inexpensive 8x10 frames (check your dollar store) and arrange them on your wall. When you get a piece of exceptional student work, add it into the frame! If you don’t want the hassle of buying and hanging frames, order a pack of mixed color picture mats and use them to frame student work on a bulletin board. Sara: Another way to get student work on display (while also practicing literary analysis!) is to have them complete this Quote Illustration and Analysis assignment; students use Canva (or any tool you wish) to make an inspirational or literary quote come to life. The results are stunning! 5. Use author-inspired decor Bonnie: Find ways to incorporate the authors you will be studying into your classroom decor. You can do this by featuring fun facts or by sharing quotes by the author. For example, I use an interactive Shakespeare Hashtag of the Week bulletin display that exposes students to one quote from a Shakespeare play each week. If you don’t want to make your own, you might even consider assigning an author to each student and having them develop a bulletin display with a biography, fun facts, and quotes that you can swap out weekly. Sara: Don't forget to interject moments of literary ALLUSION or author-inspired inside jokes as well, like my favorite light switch art... 6. Make your posters work together Sara: On at least one bulletin board or section of wall space, add some symmetry or consistency by hanging posters in a similar style (color, font, or other), or by displaying images that have a common theme. For example, check out these posters of stylized quotes to get some English class wisdom on your walls. Bonnie: If you are looking for some ideas of common themes you could use for posters, try some of these ideas that could work in any English classroom: funny grammar quotes or fails, literary terms or genres, author quotes, famous lines from literature, idiomatic expressions, or jokes using puns! To read more about my favorite bulletin board ideas for middle and high ELA, check out this blog post. "English is Weird" poster set 7. Make displays that are EASY to update Sara: Two of my favorite bulletin board spaces were ones that took VERY little effort in updating, so I didn't have the self-imposed pressure to redo the whole thing multiple times per year. For example, my Word Nerd Challenge is quick to update on a Monday morning because all I have to do is add this week's word to the list. (I made each word tile a magnet that can go on my whiteboard!) I also made low-prep Quote of the Week flipbooks of reading and writing quotes, which students often asked to flip FOR me. I used Command hooks and spiral binding to hang it on a cabinet. Do you have additional ideas? Tell us in the comments!
Turn blank spaces into inspiring places!
Short story units have the potential to deeply inspire and impact learning with students, but if the approach is disjointed or lacking any sort of alignment, these units can feel like flops. Here are the ways that I craft meaningful, engaging, and interesting units to highlight the short stories th
I recently shared this little sneak-peek of our school’s music room makeover with my fabulous Facebook followers, and from just this little pic, so many of you commented, texted and emailed the sweetest compliments. And I just wanted to say–I’m so glad you like it! I finally took the time to get the rest of […]
The Pigeon has to go to school and he's not happy about it! In fact, he's worried. Help kids kick their first-day fears with these fun ideas!
This jungle room makeover features a huge paper mache tree. Follow along as we turned my son's room into a safari hideaway.
She looks simply beautiful.
Are you obsessed with everything farmhouse? Me too! I had the amazing opportunity to partner with my Alma Mater-The University of Central Florida, and give
DIY Ikea window seat with storage. This is an Ikea Nordli hack for building bench seat with storage. This Ikea window seat built-ins uses Nordli dressers and whole project costs less than $400!
I often felt more like a juggler than an English teacher. In a 45-minute class period, I tossed the balls of grammar, writing, reading comprehension, literature, and vocabulary in the air—and hoped my students could catch it all.
At the Crafty Classroom, we have over 30 preschool themes with numerous printables and activities you can use in your homeschool or classroom!
this post contains affiliate links For many years, my classroom just didn't look or feel right. While I knew that the actions inside a classroom mattered more than what was on the walls, I also wanted it to look... well, at least clean and organized. Thus began a very gradual, years-long process of taking my room from a color-clashing mess to a comparatively calmer, semi farmhouse look. Some of the materials I bought, and some were reimbursed or bought by the school, but it did not happen overnight and was, again, a process of finding out what did and didn't work for seventh and eighth graders. Why this look? The colors and choices you see in my room were an attempt to balance several factors: Administrative Limitations: I wasn't allowed to go full-on flexible seating, and I also had only 5 authorized wall colors to choose from for ONE accent wall. Non-negotiable colors: I didn't have permission to paint, cover, or replace anything I wanted. In addition to non-negotiable carpeting, I had dark green cabinets to work around. Maximizing space: I teach middle school in a room that is NOT big enough, and I was desperate to maximize space for student desks, the classroom library, myself, and at least SOME alternative seating. The fact that I watched way too much Fixer Upper while on maternity leave (ha!) Things I Learned Before I dig into the photos and specifics, here are some of the biggest things I learned during the process, regardless of your theme: Have a color scheme and stick to it. The fewer colors, the better, unless you are actually embracing a rainbow or neon theme. Work with, not against, your classroom. As stated above, working with my non-negotiable cabinets made a world of difference for a cohesive look. Containers that match are worth your money. By "containers" I mean shelving, bins, folders, wall hanging files, or any storage. Buying a zillion of the same black milk crate REALLY helped not just my OCD but the overall appearance of cleanliness (ha) in my room. You might also like my older blog post, 7 Tips for Decorating an English Classroom Classroom Tour! Here are some of my favorite things, with links. (Some of the products shared are affiliate links, but many are not. All opinions are my own.) To see a complete list of products I recommend, check out my Amazon store. Also, follow my classroom decor journey on Instagram. I edged my whiteboard in black painter's tape for more contrast against the white walls I couldn't paint, and also used even thinner painter's tape to make the lines on the board itself. I used self-laminating sheets and magnets on the days of the week. I bought garlands from Hobby Lobby three years ago and use magnetic hooks like these to attach them to the board. These lights never recharged properly (see next photo below for my alternative), but I used painter's tape to create the "pole", along with a black hanging file, which I labeled with my Cricut machine and iron-on vinyl. These battery-powered lanterns with built-in timers have worked out MUCH better. I used the velcro-like picture hanging Command strips as well as these hooks to attach them to my wall. Pro tip: If Command strips don't stick to your wall properly, use some sandpaper to gently rough up the spot a LITTLE, which does the trick for me. Floor cushions made from recycled material were from Target; the LED adhesive lighting under my whiteboard ledge can be found here and add great opportunities to turn off the overhead lights! The ledge trays were custom made by my husband, but here's the letter kit. Hubby also made a magnetic faux barn door for me. The photo stickers were made with my Sprocket printer. The Closetmaid storage bench came from Walmart (or Amazon), the bookshelves are from IKEA, and the stools are also from Walmart. (The standing desks were from the school.) Cart from Michael's (labels made with a Cricut with free font Harry P) Trays from Office Depot; I made labels in PowerPoint and covered them with packing tape. Poster free from the NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program; white magnetic shelf from Amazon. Black crates from Lowe's - I used them ALL OVER my room. I made labels with self-laminating sheets, a hole punch, and binder rings. The vintage typewriter is a huge hit with the big kids, and not just my toddler! Container from the Target Dollar Spot, labeled by my Cricut I used dollar store frames to create a "dry erase" scoreboard; the library pockets were attached to cabinets with double sided tape. For more information about the scoreboard and how I teach grammar, visit my blog post about The Grammar House Cup. I made the Homeroom banner myself; Fadeless bulletin board paper has been good for two years now! I once read to put mirrors across from windows to bounce more light around the room. I don't know if that's true, but I did get a cheap long mirror from Walmart to put alongside a cabinet. This also cut down on student trips to the bathroom to look in a mirror! Energizer brand tap lights are a little bigger and leave more room for writing! I just did Sharpie at the time, but I know many people use Cricut machines for this. This message board has been a huge hit over time! Floor cushions (or patio cushions) from Target make a nice, cheap flexible seating option! This pencil dispenser was a big hit with students. The only downside is that mine often releases two pencils instead of just one. I used black dry erase Wall Pops to add some definition to this school-bought round table (and remind kids that 4 people should fit). The acacia SKOGSTA stools from IKEA are my all-time favorite and have been very durable the past two years (and are worth the $25 price tag, if you ask me). My mother sewed a custom table skirt for me, which we attached with adhesive Velcro. These OXO brand pop-lid containers are perfect for allergy-friendly candy. (One of these days, I will remember to make cute labels for them!) Thank you for visiting! Honorable Mentions Here are a few more of my "favorite things" in my classroom! Avery brand square labels (for my classroom library AND for Bitmoji stickers!) My favorite fidget of all time (quiet and not messy!) Jeopardy daily calendar GE Outlet Wall Plug Adapter Bingo daubers that I use to stamp papers (see this blog post!) Do you have additional ideas, questions, or comments? Share them below!
A Goodwill found vintage teacher's desk gets a (no paint) makeover!
FREE Call Backs and attention getters for the kindergarten classroom! Great classroom management tool!
Help your students and their parents understand the value of attending school by displaying this poster or sending it home as a flyer. ...
so excited to share arlo’s play kitchen!! i honestly don’t think i’ve ever been so passionate about a project. i planned to do this for his christmas present, but once it was done…
Do you want to kick off the kindergarten school year the right way? Get the full list of the top 8 do's and don'ts
"Simplify, slow down, be kind, And don't forget to have art in your life - music, paintings, theater, dance, and sunsets."...
Private School (CC Pack for The Sims 4)A while back, I shared my plans to develop a Custom Content (CC) pack dedicated to the high school experience, long before Maxis announced the High School Years expansion pack. The response from my patrons was overwhelming, with a flood of fantastic ideas…
