Back to School Madness!

Well I did it, I made it into my classroom this week.  In fact I spent 3 entire days there and I am not finished yet!  I took my hubby on the first day and he put together a new bookshelf for me.  I was then faced with the problem of where to put said bookshelf!  I had to rearrange the entire classroom.  In the end it was a good thing, but at the time I was really vexed with all the changes I had to make.  For the next two days my fantastic daughter went into the school with me and helped me with all the laminating, printing, rearranging and getting organized.  The room looks great!  I forced myself to change up my bulletin board paper...I rarely do this as I usually reuse corrugated fadeless paper.  I put up a fantastic turquoise and black board with "Thinking Skills" relating to Blooms Taxonomy on it.  I have to say I am really happy.  I also put up my back to school bulletin board that looks like this:

I saw a post on Pinterest and I thought I want that board!  I clicked on the link but it took me to an American supply store.  I looked up the items and found them at my local teacher supply store here in Toronto (Sonsuh Educational on McNicoll Avenue).  I was able to get the barn board paper and the "Welcome Back to School" apple bulletin board set.  I was not able to find the border you see in this picture but I did find a cute black and red apple one that works really well too!  I put the board up pretty much like the picture you see here...but I kept more of the apple together.  I LOVE the way it looks.  My only negative comment is that it took forever to get a dry erase marker to write on the apple pieces.  All the markers I tried would "bubble up" when I wrote the kids names on the pieces.  I tried half a dozen different types of dry erase and regular markers until I found how to work around the problem.  If you write the name on, wipe it off vigorously when it bubbles up and then rewrite it (with a LIQUID based dry erase marker) the name stays.

I printed out my "Last Minute Dismissal" checklist on the colour printer, laminated the pages onto brightly coloured cards and put them on the doors of one of my cabinets.  A former teacher from the school popped in to visit and it was the first thing she commented on. 

 If you would still like to download a copy of it you can do that HERE for FREE.

I put up my "NO NAME" sign I made using Dollarama materials and I think it will work great.

I also printed out some other posters from the Internet, framed them in dollar store frames and put them up.  I have to say the room looks great.  I plan on taking some pictures when I go in again next week and I will share them here.

I hope everyone is having fun getting ready to go back.  Even with the situation here in Ontario (the Premier recalling the gov't on Monday to legislate away our rights) I am optimistic about my upcoming year.  Have a great weekend!