brightly colored, fully functional

I'm really happy with giving into the color scheme that I've had {com.plete.ly} and it's really made a difference to me feeling like the room is cohesive and its a space I can teach in. Is it necessary to coordinate colors to have an awesome classroom space? No. Do I love the result this year? Yes. Do I plan on changing colors every year? No way.

Here is a project that I saw pinned and brought to life using duct tape. Yes, duct tape. I feel like I won the duct tape queen award this year as it is everywhere in my room. {More examples to come} I used a giant oil pan as found in the automotive section of a big box store that was under $12. I laid out some scrap paper and magnets to help me plan where I wanted sections to go.  My kinders can only reach so high, since I mounted this to my bulletin board, so some of it is reserved teacher display space.

So with some colorful duct tape, scrapbook paper and the oil pan we now have a colorful and shiny mutli-purpose board. What purposes you ask?

The purple section at the top will hold our school expectations. The green (with a magnetic clip) will display our lunch menu and the sections below are for daily use by my kinders. See the smudge? {Silent grrr} If you don't laminate the papers, then don't stick magnets right onto the paper... when they move, they leave a mark. However, they still work great when sitting on the duct tape and don't make marks there.

When they come, they will move a simple circle magnet with their name on it from the "home" section to selecting their lunch choice. In our school, students can also order a sandwich from the cafeteria, so we need a third option.

And I added a strong clip to hold our class list. I also adhered a magnet to a highlighter to go in this space. They highlight their name if they choose this lunch option and this list is given to the lunch staff. It is a job in our class to put the magnets all back at the end of the day.

This board also helps me track who is in and out of the room and students can move their magnets to these other options. I've never tried making anything so crafty {yes seriously... my talents show up much better on the computer than with hot glue} but I'm loving how it turned out. The duct tape really was forgiving as I moved it around and straightened out the lines... who knew? 

More Classroom Functionality
Creating a System for Lost Materials
Creating a System for Using the Restroom
Responsibility in the Classroom

Attendance, lunch count, head count, display space... brightly colored and fully functional. I think that's my style!

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- Leslie

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