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! 

Letter tiles - CHEAP!

Remember I showed you my Dollar Tree finds the other day?

Well I wanted to tell you a little more about the letter tiles I scored! I recently bought some letter tiles from Lakeshore, but I was a little disappointed at what I got for what I paid and I need to send them back. It was an impulse buy, and I'm never good at that.

However, I got 4 sets of alphabet tiles for a third the price at Dollar Tree! I bought two capital and two lowercase packs. I will keep them at the word work center. Since they are foam, they are also thin enough to put in a pocket chart - I have a couple tabletop pocket charts I snagged at the dollar spot last summer.

Each package has two foam sheets, and the letters are perforated. I was excited and opened them up right away to tear the letters apart... I was a little too excited:

 ...but truly this is EASY to do. DO NOT TEAR THESE APART! After ripping this one, I used scissors to cut along the perforated lines. Honestly, each set has a bajillion e's so we'll be fine without this one.

I was a little bummed when I saw this a:

but this is the only letter that was messed up out of 4 packages. Pretty good for $4!

I can't wait to get something like this to store and organize the letters:

Do you have letter tiles in your classroom? What do your kiddos like to use them for?