Back to School TO DO

This is SO me right now! 

I just finished creating and printing my word wall letters (this is gonna be my cutest one yet!)

{polka dots and chevron by Dreamlike Magic}

I love that my vowels are hot pink and my consonants are light green. I know, what happened to green and blue, right? Well this will all be on a blue background thanks to Walmart's super cheap twin sheets. Staple a sheet to the wall, add some border, and you've got another bulletin board!

Then I printed this super cutie:

{The Teacher Wife}

...still figuring out where it will go.

Laminated? Framed? Plastered on each and every kid's desk and tattooed on my forehead?

In other news...

I had a HUGE moment of panic last night when I looked at a calendar. I know, right? Where did all of my summer go? I fly out SUPER early Wednesday morning to go visit the fam for a week. This will be the longest time that my sweet hubby and I have spent apart since we got married 3 years ago! Maybe that sounds sappy to you, but I love that boy :)

I'll get back next Wednesday, then I start a workshop the following Mon-Thurs. After that, I'm back in my classroom the next Monday, non-stop till school starts!

My summer vacay (at home) only has 5 days left!

Soooo... what's left on my to-do list? (And what can I get done on the plane?)

A Get-to-know-the-teacher Scavenger Hunt for the first week of school. 

Some examples for a writing center

An All About Mrs. Newman book

(Hopefully my sweet mom can help me with this while I'm home!)

A Check-Out board

...and last but not least...

Sweet table skirts and curtains

(Hoping mom might be all about this too!)

Too ambitious? PROBABLY! What's left on your back-to-school to-do list?

Hooray! Classroom Pretty

A couple weeks ago I started thinking about ways to make my classroom PRETTY this year in ways that wouldn't interfere with the function. I considered draping fabric between ceiling tiles:

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... but decided that would be a LOT of fabric, and a lot of dust in my face as I tried to maneuver the fabric. I thought about a couple other things, but they didn't have quite the dramatic impact I was going for. 

Enter Paper Lanterns:

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BONUS! Paper lanterns aren't too expensive! I'm doing my classroom in blues and greens (with some pops of pink, because I LOVE pink) so I went in search, internet search, of paper lanterns. Did you know you could buy those things in just about ANY color you can imagine?! Hooray!!!

I looked at two different websites, Luna Bazaar and Paper Lantern Store. They are almost identical, and for no particular reason, I ended up ordering from PLS. No matter which site you use, there are SO many styles and sizes of lanterns, so you can really do whatever you want with these lanterns! 

I ended up ordering 3 green and 3 "turquoise" (I call it blue)lanterns at 12" tall, and then they had these packs of 10 lanterns, 4" tall, for super cheap. See?

All told it cost me $26.13 (incl. shipping) for 26 lanterns!

I can't wait to hang these babies up. The big ones will go over the kid's tables, and somehow they'll have the table numbers on them. The small ones will hang over the classroom library at different heights to create a kind of cloud of color over there. I can't wait to get in my classroom, hang them up, and show y'all some pictures! 

What are you doing to decorate your classroom this year? Do you have a theme or color scheme?

P.S.: After searching online, and a home improvement store, and a craft store, I finally found a good way to organize my dollar store foam letter tiles! Each tray holds one set of capital letters and one set of lowercase. The trays were $2 at Walmart. Can't beat that price! Wish I'd gone there first, but our nearest Walmart is a 30+ minute drive. Good thing I have one near school!