sprucing up my classroom

I had four wooden bookshelves that are old and beaten-up, that someone passed down to me my first year at this school. I’ve used them ever since, but it didn’t occur to me until this summer that I could paint them to make them look better. (Here is one with my old, beaten-up puzzle collection.)

My Americorps volunteer and I cleaned, sanded, cleaned, and then spray painted two of the four shelves turquoise. It was a time-consuming task, so we stopped after two. Plus, we ran out of spray paint.

It was totally worth the effort. The two that are still unpainted are on the side of the room, and the two turquoise shelves are in the center of the room where they will be noticed, one for the writing center, and one for the art center.

This is the art center shelf, although I haven’t yet finished figuring out what exactly is going to go in it.

As I’ve mentioned, all school supplies in my room are communal. Here is how I organize our scissors, colored pencils, glue sticks, and thin markers:

I use silver pails that I got at Target’s dollar shelves one or two summers ago. Underneath, I have Dots on Turquoise circles that have a photo of the item along with the word. The circles are laminated, and stuck to the top of the shelf with little glue dots. (I usually use contact paper, but I didn’t want to risk ruining the new paint job.) I must give credit to my Americorps volunteer, by the way — she did all the work, and followed my instructions to a “T.”