Back to school time is always busy for everyone involved, but my school year started a little crazier than usual. School was delayed by a week due to some water issues (I know, those seem to follow me around) and just getting school started in general is always just kinda nuts. However, I was really craving a routine and being back at school, just because our summer was so crazy. I’m so grateful to work in a place with supportive administration, teachers and sweet kids. I think teachers get that “first day of school jitter” thing just as badly as kids do. I definitely do! I was so anxious to meet this group of four years old’s and I’m really excited about the year ahead.
This is probably my favorite bulletin board ever. I found this octopus idea on pinterest. I made these paper plate fish with my aunt, green streamers as seaweed and die cut paint swatches to make a few extra fish. I’ll show you how to make these cool decoration in my next teacher post.
I wanted to start writing more about crafts, projects, classroom hacks and other teacher related subjects. This post is all about my ocean themed classroom and how I used ordinary items to make a pretty awesome “Under the Sea” themed classroom. And the kids LOVED it! 
Favorite Classroom Finds: Here are a few items I love to use in my classroom and where you can find them. For decorations, these fish nets and these ocean die cuts. I love this calendar, this counting pocket chart and this helping hands chart for everyday classroom circle time. I love these IKEA pillows and these pillow cases to make a reading couch. Also, the Dollar Tree is great for all sorts of teacher supplies like die-cut letters and borders.
Discipline System: I’m a huge fan of the positive reinforcement system with kids. I love giving the kids something to work towards. I read the kids the “Have you filled a bucket today?” book and used that to set the stage for our discipline system. I ordered this shoe holder, stuck it the wall with command strips, bought $1 buckets from Target in a ton of colors and use colorful pom-poms as rewards. The kids start the week with 1 pom-pom and as they do kind things, they get a pom-pom. They have to get to 5 in one week. Then they get a sticker on their chart. Once they get to 5 stickers, they get to go in the treasure box. So far, they seem to love this! It also gives you something to help the kids stay on track. When there’s some disruptive behavior or breaking of class rules, the kids get a warning and then a pom-pom is taken out of the bucket.
Here’s how I decorated my classroom this year! I’ll show you how to make some of these projects and decorations in my next post!
The purple and pink crates on the left are one of my favorite Wal-Mart finds, because they’re great for toys, lunches or filing projects. The “Sea of Birthdays” wall is just the cutest. We wrote the kids names on die-cut sea creatures and decorated with the fish net I mentioned before.
Another way we used the fish net, an old rug and take note of the jellyfish on the ceiling. I’ll show you how to make those in my next teaching post. Our reading area is made up of IKEA pillows and Wal-Mart pillow cases. Easy to clean and super cheap.
This is my “Circle Time” bulletin board so we can easily review shapes, colors, sight words, and letter of the week.
Here’s the calendar and counting chart I mentioned earlier. I also love the idea of always having a globe and map in the classroom, because I’m a firm believer in inspiring kids to love the world and traveling.
Our tree in the classroom was just a plain old tree, so we made it into a palm tree, slapped a sunshine up on the wall and added a little fabric bulletin board for some color.
A little dark, but I wanted to show the Bucket Filling chart at the right side of this photo.
Here you can see a few more jellyfish and CD fish hanging from the ceiling. I had the kids paint more jellyfish once they got to school, so our ceiling is full of jellyfish now.
Stay tuned for my next post where I’ll show you how to make a few of my decorations and where you can buy the supplies. Happy school year!
Cheers!
Aubrey