Cruisin' Classrooms Linky

It's finally finished!!!! I love my new classroom. 

If you remember this is what my classroom looked like before:

After weeks of paining and working in my room nonstop I'm finally finished! I can't tell you how relieved I was when I realized the painting was finished. Remember that post about my painting? It's downright embarrassing how bad I am. Take a second to read it and then have sympathy for all the klutzes out there. 

Now that the painting is behind me I can appreciate how open and clean my room looks now. 

I have many favorite parts of this room but I must say I love how the READ acrostic poem turned out. I also love my book quotes. Inspiring my students through book quotes has such a neat appeal to me. Nothing like turning to Dumbledore for a bit of advice. 

Take a look! 

This is the view of the front of my room. The library pocket charts and hand signal circles were such a genius idea from Miss Sammi. Did you notice the MacCart? I'm so EXCITED to be working in a school that is 1:1. Not only do all of my students have iPads but we share a MacCart at 4th grade. It's such a blessing!!! 

I just love this....Before You Speak Think Is it.....and then each letter has a word:

true

helpful

inspiring

necessary

kind

I really want to stress to be kiddos the importance of this message. 

Just look at those cubbies!!! I love them now. They were worth every bruise! 

Classroom rule signs are hanging from the front of my air unit. They are from KinderCraze and are so fitting! I just love the design. They match my room perfectly! I added to her idea and created Book Quotes to hang above. 

I created the READ acrostic poem using my dear friend Jena's Cricut. Have you ever used one??? If not, find a friend with one and be prepared to fall in love. I'm really hoping I can convince our PTO to purchase one for staff to use. 

Don't you just love these purple curtains?! Michelle and I made them! Gotta love hem tape. We actually took bedroom curtains from Wal-Mart, cut them in half, and hemmed them. It was so easy! 

I can't tell you how pumped I am to use this Word Warriors Spelling Unit. Reading Street spelling just wasn't working for my kids. I wanted something that was meaningful and that would help them be better word detectives. This unit looks like it will fit the bill perfectly! 

Getting routine established at the beginning of the year can be so frustrating. This year I'm using these hand signals so my kiddos never have to leave their seats and yet I can tell what they need from across the room.

Ignore the wrinkled paper. My room had some moisture issues so all my boards wrinkled. :( 

I love the little glass jars. They were perfect! Thank goodness for Gordmans. 

Mr. Coffee, Fridge, Microwave, Toaster, and Tea Kettle....I don't even need to leave my room! 

I love this cabinet. It turned out so perfect. 

I'm not a fan of my teacher desk so until my new one arrives this is what I'm using. I covered the old ugly top with this fantastic contact paper and VOILA it fits my room perfectly. 

This classroom is so me and so far my kiddos are loving it! They have taken such pride in our room and are keeping it clean and tidy. It makes this OCD teacher proud! 

Now, it's your turn! 

Join us as we cruise through teachers classrooms. Each year is new and exciting and I can't wait to see what everyone is doing in their rooms this year. If you would like to link up just follow these steps: 

* Grab the linky image above and link back to this blog post. 
* Blog about your room this year and share your favorite part of your room. 
* Click below and add your image. 
* Please comment on the blog post before and after yours. Share the love friends. Share the love! 

This link will stay open for several weeks so don't stress if your room isn't ready yet! Just come back when you are finished and join in on the fun. 

-Tracy

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A Painter I Am Not

You can follow Tracy at her new blog: The Knit Wit Teacher

There are moments in your life that are eye opening.

This past week made it blatantly obvious that I am a HORRIBLE painter. I spent all of last Saturday in my room with my hubby and we painted the walls and my built in bookshelves. By the end of the day I was COVERED in paint. He had a few drops on him....That may or may not have been my fault.

Part of me thought I should wait until the very end to share my photos of my room update but the more I thought about it I realized that I wanted to share the process with you. The good and the bad. So here goes.

**Before you see these photos please remember that my room is a WRECK! I have boxes stacked everywhere. I have cleaning supplies spread throughout my room, books piled up, and desks crammed in the middle. This is the problem of moving rooms and redecorating at the same time. Everything is just thrown about. It's driving me cRaZy! ***

Ignore the mess :)

My walls before:
This was my front doorway:

 Front Wall:

Back Wall: I HATE that my projector is on my back wall. It just seems unnatural to be facing the wrong way. Take note of the ugly BROWN chalkboard.

 Cubby Wall:

 Window Wall:

Drum roll please........

After: 

Front Doorway: 

Front Wall: Take note of my new BLACK chalkboards and the bookshelves. The ugly brown had to go!

Back Wall: Just look at that pretty blackboard. I just love it.

FYI: When it came time to paint the front and back walls my hubby had to leave to go get the kids. This meant it was me, an edger, a roller, and the step ladder.

Saying I'm short is being kind. I am 5'3" in the right shoes. It was not fun trying to reach the top of the wall. Standing on my tiptoes painting around the screen was a not fun either. Don't look too closely at the ceiling tiles.

Cubbies: I just had to show them again.

I sat on top of the cubbies to paint them. I hope no one every looks at the top of these cubbies. It's not pretty up there.

I didn't think ahead before I climbed up there. I left the trash bags I was using as tarps and my rag on the floor. Once I got up I realized getting back down wasn't going to be fun. I'm not 20 anymore. At this point I weighed the pros and cons of climbing down or just saying forget it....I'm not proud to say that I took the mindset that no one would ever see it so I was just going to keep going.

But hey: The cubbies themselves are beautiful and that's all that matters!

Window Wall: Painting over the mural was a really difficult decision for me. I felt really bad about it but when I thought about it I realized that it just didn't fit me or the plan I have for the room. Painting the wall white really opened the room up and made it so much brighter. I still feel really guilty about painting over the mural but I know it was right for me.

 Take note of the ugly beige heater unit.

It was really gross. It took me about 30 minutes to scrape all the old tape off and to get rid of the dust. I could't stand for the ugly dirty beige to remain so I used Chalkboard paint to paint over it.

Now if you remember I dropped primer all over my floor......(Again: A painter I am not!)

This meant that I didn't have any primer left to cover the air unit. Hopefully this doesn't come back to bite me. The paint kept streaking when I was applying it..... but I finally got it to look smooth. Ignore the paint I dripped on the floor. If you think the floor is bad you should see my feet. I stepped in the paint. Oops. Luckily my carpet hasn't been cleaned yet. Whew!

My messiness aside I'm loving this chalkboard paint. It makes things pop.

See the corner where the white and green come together? It's really bugging me that I can't get a perfect straight line there. I need something to cover it up. Any ideas?


Have you seen Kinder-Craze's classroom? It's beautiful and I just love it.  Especially her file cabinets. They are bright and cheerful and they make me smile.

I NEED those file cabinets. It's spray paint. What could go wrong??? I can do this.

I watched her tutorial video, bought my supplies, gave myself a pep talk, and was ready to go.

EPIC FAIL! I'm still recovering from the horror of this process.

I had several things go wrong with this project:

I had 2 cans of spray paint. Needless to say that wasn't enough.

Wind was not my friend. Not my friend at all!

I streaked BADLY.

I ended up tinged yellow....

I admitted defeat.

I brought this bad boy home in hopes of being about to fix it tomorrow. Maybe. Covering it with contact paper may be my best option.

Throughout this process I've realized a few things:

Spray paint is not my friend.

Actually painting in general is not my friend. I'm bad at it. I'm messy. I get covered in paint from head to toe. I even get it on my elbows. Who does that? I'm a very messy painter and I TRY not to be. My klutziness doesn't help.

Getting paint out of your hair takes DAYS. Eventually I sat in front of my hubby and had him pick the paint out of my hair. I felt like a monkey.

My wall color matches my laptop cover. This wasn't intentional. I must really like this color. :)

I still have a TON of work to do to make this room mine/ours but it's coming together. It hasn't been perfect. I'm making mistakes. But I'm okay with that. I'm confident in my teaching abilities. Room decorating not so much. I'm treating it as a learning process.....I'm learning a lot.

Stay tuned. Next up:

Covering up my blue counter tops. Did you notice those on top of my air unit/bookshelves?  Deciding on if I'm getting rid of my ugly brown teacher desk for a pretty small white writing desk. Or one of the cute desks I found on Etsy.

And somehow fixing the yellow cabinet.

This should be fun!