Sprucing up my classroom

Today I spent the whole morning browsing all sorts of scrapbooking programs and clip art collections we had installed in the school computer looking for inspiration to help me spruce up my classroom walls and windows. This year we decided to have our designs digitally printed with a tarpaulin instead of the usual paint and paper that we use. The last time I decorated my classroom wall, I probably spent a whole week painstakingly cutting out art paper to glue to the walls for my cutey-patootey garden. This is what it looked like:

not the best lighting for a photo, but you get the idea

Each flower petal and leaf was cut out individually. Wasn’t it cute? However, I realized that it’s not the most cost-efficient way of decorating my classroom walls, especially since the kids end up picking on it till it peels! To be fair, it lasted for 2 years so I guess it was worth the effort!

However, like I said, this year we decided to use tarpaulins for my new classroom for two reasons: it comes out more cost-effective and the classroom where I’ll be staying at this year is in the open-air section of the school. Sometimes, when it rains really hard and I forget to close the windows, the stuff gets wet! We also had leaking problems with the roof by the wall where I intend to decorate so if I used the usual paint-and-paper decors, that would be a nightmare.

I haven’t found my classroom design yet, but I think I’ve decided on a playground theme this year. I’ve done garden, city and sea in the past so for this next year, I’m excited about the play theme. Any suggestions? For the next two weeks I’ll be trying to compile photos or patterns to use for my design while the carpenters and technicians change the paint, fix the roof, install new light fixtures, a fire alarm and a door chime to replace the current one which seems to be grounded and has it’s wires sticking out. In the meantime, I will surf the web for more inspiration!