Layla Henry- Fancy Free in 4th- Blog

Fancy Ideas for the Everyday Classroom

Sweet Summer Finds

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My brain is on overdrive as I think about the possibilities of this up and coming school year.  I was literally laying in bed the other day at 6:30 AM thinking about my classroom theme, decorating, organizing, lesson planning! It is so easy to get carried away with spending money. Figuring out how to vamp up the classroom while not breaking the bank is an art form.  Here are two of my Sweet Summer Finds.

1) After switching classrooms every year I have taught, I am over the expensive fadeless paper and onto the budget friendly fabric.  I decided my classroom theme is going to be owls, but to mix things up by using fun patterns. I found some polka dot and chevron fabric for the walls and I am going to make curtains from the owl fabric. I got the fabric on Amazon.com and used a gift card I had floating around from last Christmas.

2) One of the biggest issues regarding classroom organization that I had last year was the amount of books and workbooks that my students had crammed in their desks. It was a mess.  I saw some great chair pockets on some teacher blogs but when I looked into buying Seat Sacks, but a class set would have cost me over $300! 
I saw on Nerdy Teacher Confessions Blog that she used Home
Depot half aprons instead. Lo and behold, I found these half aprons on Ebay and bought 30 for $25.  This was totally a steal and will fix all those cluttery desks

3) Last but not least my dear friend from Apples to ABC’s told me about the Michaels app on the iPhone.  How did I not know about this forever and a day ago? If you don’t have it and you frequent Michaels as much as I do, then download it now. It is a free app that you can download onto your phone and it has coupons on it that range from 15-40%. No more forgetting the coupon at home (which I always do). Here is a screen shot from my phone. I will be using this baby today!

I would love to here from you all about other budget friendly classroom ideas or stores that you find inexpensive supplies.

Comments

  5. I'm in the same boat as you – I'm going into my 4th year of teaching, and I've had to change classrooms and schools every. single. year. I'm ready to settle in in one place!! But I guess the plus side is, I haven't been able to accumulate TOO much clutter! šŸ™‚

    I love the idea of the Michaels app! Off to download it right now, thanks for sharing!

    Reply

  6. I too am a fan of fabric! Thanks for sharing the tip on the Home Depot aprons, I hate how messy and crammed 4th grade desks can become, especially if you have five required textbooks among the workbooks and notebooks!

    I'm thinking JoAnn's might have something like the Michael's app also because I was able to click a link in my emailed coupon that sent a text message to my phone with the 15%off coupon!

    Love finding other 4th grade teacher bloggers – will be following you! (I'm a newbie myself)

    forkin 4th

    Reply

  12. I love the fabrics you chose for your classroom….especially the black and white chevron! I am off to Amazon to order some for myself…if they have any left! Can't wait to see how it all comes together! Thanks for stopping by my blog…:)

    Vicky
    Keep Calm & Imagine

    Reply

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