Emergency Measures for Ugly Classrooms

I need help! Please if anyone can help me decorate! My classroom is a trailer that used to be a locker room. It is 8 to 10 feet in width and 20 feet long. I don't get paid enough to go out and buy new wallpaper or paint or even the posters they sell at the education shops. The students are always complaining that it is too loud because there is nothing to absorb the sound. The walls are easily broken through, and the roof is tin. Students are also having a hard time working because it is just plain ugly in there. We did use movie posters for a while, but those were ripped apart and written on. Does anyone have any good ideas for inexpensive decorations?

Kathryn Wilson

The kids are complaining? Let the kids do the work. Dig through your school office and find some construction paper. Have students put their assignments on construction paper and decorate them. My students just finished a character sketch, and I had them "frame them" and now they're hanging on my walls. Have the students find a quotation they feel represents who they are/what they like to do. Write/type it on paper, decorate it and hang it up.

Can't afford construction paper? Offer students five extra credit points for every package they bring in.

Hang up a long piece of butcher paper with a few markers attached. Have a question each week ("What is your favorite way to spend a rainy day?") for students to write/draw their responses.

Basically, it's not your job to decorate the room -- it's theirs. You need to provide the opportunity and the tools, and they need to provide the imagination and the effort.

Kelly Flanigan

Get the kids involved in thinking up ideas. Ask them who their heroes are; get pictures from magazines. Maybe each week one team gets to put up a hero picture and talk about it and write some reasons why this idol is a good hero -- and that might lead to some discussion relating to the literature you are studying. What makes a hero?

Try getting a magnetic poetry kit or Office Max refrigerator magnets (a small pack is inexpensive) that students could make their own magnetic poetry stuff on. Ask local newspaper for extra end-print newspaper rolls to make flip charts and borders.

What are you studying? Would a timeline around the room be appropriate? or drawings that go with the literature? I'd go scrounge at a thrift shop or discount craft store and get kids creating meaningful collages. Maybe use a Kodak MAX camera to take a photo of each student, and put up along with their self-written "I like _____ about me" on poster board? Get kids writing letters to local businesses to see what they can contribute.

Janet Bone

I don't know what grade you teach, but last year my 7th graders did a fabric quilt of The Giver. About half way through the reading, we discussed symbols for each chapter. Then, in groups of four they painted their chapter on felt squares. Students from another class stitched the squares together for extra credit and we ended up with a 6' x 8' felt blanket which we hung on the walls. The kids loved it and fabric does absorb some noise. You can usually get fabric samples donated by those high class decorating stores (they just throw out discontinued samples). The fabric paint was the most expensive -- but when one of our craft stores has their midnight madness sale (fabric paint becomes four for $1), I load up.

I also did a project a few years ago with point of view, reading the original three little pigs and the "new" version. Then I gave cut-outs of pigs and wolves. The kids decided whose viewpoint they agreed with and wrote their justification on the cut-outs, decorated their animals, and we strung them around the room.

Essentially, I believe in decorating with the kids' work, and I cover every square inch of the classroom I'm in. In fact, after leaving my beautified room in middle school, I began teaching at a high school where I shared the ugliest portable imaginable (one paneled wall was falling down) and used some of my middle students' work to liven the room up until my high school students generated story boards, character masks, etc.

I am now sharing a normal room with another teacher -- we've run out of wall and door space -- my next project will involve hanging butterflies from the ceiling (I Never Saw Another Butterfly).

Michelle Garbis

Let the students come up with their own ideas of how the classroom should be decorated. Since it is their environment, it should be filled with things that they like. Have them make up a list of four or five possible themes -- movies, art, literature -- and vote for their favorite. Then have the students find various pieces that go with that particular theme.

John

For decor, instead of spending a fortune on those terrific inspirational posters, I tore out full-page photos from Travel and Leisure and Vogue and Gourmet and mounted them on construction paper. Then I asked students to make up sayings or come up with one word. I typed them up, and now we have our own inspirational images. Time to replace, though! My son advises me, "Mom, you gotta have neat stuff for your kids to look at when they get bored." Now, how's that for confidence?

Angeline Vogl

First of all, tell the kids that if they can't manage to leave the decorations you DO put up alone, they have no right to complain about how ugly the room is. Wal-Mart and K-Mart have those $5-10 prints of paintings. They also have posters for about $4 with nifty sayings about life (in those racks with the Backstreet Boys, NASCAR, etc.)

I photocopy comics and put them up. And Shel Silverstein poems. Have the students do some artwork about a story or poem you are studying, then hang it up. Make a border with some crepe paper or big sheets of construction paper. I hang up student poetry every now and then. Put up some of your favorite sayings. Have the students find some, and let them illustrate theirs.

Shane

If you have cheap or free access to a laminator, you might do this: on the rolling kind of laminator, I place old calendar pictures, evenly spaced, then keep in long pieces to hang on the wall. You might also check video stores for movie posters. Travel agencies supposedly are a good source, but I haven't had good luck with them. Build up your supply of posters inexpensively watching for clearance sales -- postholiday things.

I don't laminate posters any more because the light glares off of them too much. I'll often enlarge/photocopy illustrations that fit with a unit and "matte" them on construction paper.

Wendy V. Weber

I always spend money on art supplies, so my room, which up until last year hadn't been painted in 20 years, looks colorful. Students work on graphics for their reading very frequently. Sometimes it is mandalas, sometimes it is mindmaps, or giant book covers illustrating something we've read. These all make great decorations. And students tend not to mess with the things they've created.

Another thing I've had them do: use old file folders (our English dept. accidentally bought legal-size once and they don't fit anything but make great project paper) and make found poems. These make interesting posters.

Students can also create bumper stickers based on reading. A uniform sized font and one computer can make these graphically fun and interesting to stare at. This project is quick and easy, so many if not all students will contribute.

I do hang a couple of my own things up -- an Apple poster of Jane Goodall and one of Cesar Chavez, a Korean calendar, some wonderful photos of African art, and drawings and art that students have done.

If you think you will be there for a while, make books and book displays part of it all. There is a web page that shows you how to make bookshelves out of white plastic rain gutters. Click on Rain Gutters on "Jim Trelease on Reading" Web page at http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/.

Here's another favorite. Read a play and have the kids do mobiles for each act or scene. Works great with Romeo and Juliet. Show them paper dolls for inspiration, or not. Mobiles can be specified characters, props, setting features, etc. Then hang them from the ceiling. Very cool.

Lynne Culp

Color in a classroom really makes a difference! Does your school buy those big rolls of colored bulletin board paper (rolls are four feet wide)? I often have placed long (4-8 ft.) spreads of colored bulletin board paper on a wall where no bulletin board exists. Sometimes I put up a border, sometimes not. I use it like a bulletin board to post student work. I usually have to glue on any lettering I put up on these impromptu display areas. If your school does not supply the big colored rolls of paper, you could go to a fabric store and purchase fabric remnants and use in the same way. Fabric is usually 48 or 60 inches in width.

An easy idea for putting up any wall decorations is to hot glue the fabric or impromptu paper "bulletin board." The hot glue adheres to anything as long as you want it to and then pops off at the end of the year with a pull of the fingers. Those teacher stores that sell elementary stuff usually sell the bulletin board paper I am talking about, and all sorts of borders. The stores will sell the bulletin board paper by the foot and carry all the available colors. It costs about $2.00 to buy enough paper to cover a big bulletin board or a stretch of your wall.

If you cannot find anyone near you, Kurtz Bros. (from PA) has a wonderful catalog that they will send you. They are on the list at the above Web address, and have their own Web site at http://www.kurtzbros.com/.

Cindy Adams

Why not have the kids bring stuff in? My friend has five areas on the walls of her room -- music, nature, sports, culture, and student work. She bought some old calendars from a used bookshop and brought in some of her own photos and posters, and then had the kids supply the rest. In the student work section, she took photos of all her students and placed them next to their work.

In my room, we have student work and some random posters that I had lying around. But in one corner, I have a lounging area for paper conferences or for when the students finish ahead of time. There, I've posted poetry and quotes and have a makeshift table (a covered box) with magazines, short stories, and such placed on it. Also adjacent to that area is student artwork. The others are always amazed that their friends are the ones who painted/drew the work, too.

Diane M. Ichikawa

Do you and your students have access to computers/color printers? If so, have them make 8½" x 11" posters of their favorite quotations. (They can do a little research ahead of time to select favorites if they don't already have some in mind.) This works particularly well with a program like Print Shop Deluxe. As another talkie has mentioned, if you can have the posters laminated, they'll last a LONG time.

Portia

I think somewhere in English Journal I saw a cute idea that might be nice for your classroom. Ask half of your students to outline their left feet on construction paper (white paper would do, too), and ask the other half to outline their right feet. Then ask each student to write words which describe his/her personality (soul?) The left and right feet are paired and so you have the class standing on the walls.

Keren Rosa

In one of the rooms that I share, the teacher has put her TAs to work papering the walls. The secret is that she had kids bring in old Far Side desk calendars -- the square ones with a daily cartoon. She has them paste them up with cheap Vano liquid starch. They use foam brushes and put up about twenty five a day. I can only guess what a fun time your classes would have with some inexpensive brushes and a few glue jugs of liquid starch. After just a Sunday or two of color comics cut out and pasted up, your room would be so much more colorful.

The one year I had a room for more than two hours in one day, I started gathering up the lunch menu/calendars from the mail room. They always use the most colorful paper and only print on one side. I had my TAs that year cut them into funky shaped borders that I used to frame student work. Do a visual arts lesson on form and line and color and have the kids create their own masterpieces on cheap white butcher paper using mixable water-based poster paints. I got some old bottles of paint from our art teachers. They're always happy to clean out their cupboards.

Here's another idea for making sound baffles: Get butcher paper and have kids trace each other onto double thickness sheets. Stuff with newspaper and seal the edges and then hang them on the walls. Paint them first to look like the person traced. Or, make big birds and palm trees and sand dunes the same way and tropicalize the space.

Every Wal-Mart has a dollar-a-yard fabric table that would make dreadful dresses, but wonderful wall coverings with the Vano starch idea again. It's great to use because everything stays put and then just peels right back off, especially fabric.

It's really very simple. You'll need:

Liquid starch (Vano is a brand name here-get what they sell in your neighborhood)

foam paintbrushes (minimum: rags)

bowls

Clean-up materials (soap and water)

1. Clean the surface first -- grease-free, dust-free

2. Paint the item with the liquid starch, both sides. (If using rags, apply the starch by daubing the surface.)

3. Put the item on the wall. Smooth it with a ruler or your hand.

4. Let it dry.

If you're using fabric, you have to immerse it in the starch. You can thin the starch a little with water. You'll use more starch faster, but you'll be covering more wall at one time. That's really all there is to it.

Putting up fabric and starch on a painted wall, with at least a semi-gloss finish, will leave a minimal residue. It washes off with water and rags. It will not peel the paint, if the finish is sound to begin with. I would never try the starch and fabric on a wall with a flat or matte finish, unless guaranteed scrub-able. Same goes for raw wood, which would soak up so much starch as to make it unfeasible.

If your painted surface has cracks or bubbles, you may find it peeling with the fabric. But you could certainly do some preliminary paint patching to avoid peeling later on. I've never had anything peel, and we've put up two different fabric wall coverings in our daughters' bedroom.

Del Hughes

Try using the color movie advertisements from the New York Times Sunday edition. My students love them. You do have to watch the ratings of the movies and the age level that you teach.

Alice Faribault

If you have a graphics program, like Printmaster or Printshop, you can grab graphics (cartoons, photographs, artwork, etc.) off the web and put them into your own posters to print out of a color laser printer. I've made several posters of author's homes or the sites where a piece of literature takes place. They are small, but they can be colorful, and relatively cheap once you have the equipment/software.

Also, try using maps. They can be big and colorful. See if someone you know has a subscription to National Geographic and would be willing to give you the maps. They do a national and a world map on alternating years. You could laminate the maps and use string to point out areas important to what you are studying.

For bulletin boards, try using wrapping paper. Some at the discount places can be really cheap. You will need several rolls. I usually buy two rolls for each of my 4' x 4' bulletin boards. You could use ribbon for a border.

If you live near a college community, check the college bookstore, particularly a few weeks after the start of a term. They often have leftover posters they are happy to get rid of.

Lastly, keep your eyes open! Sometimes you find posters in the oddest places. I have a great poster of a lake with a Thoreau quote that was given away for free when a local store did an environmental campaign. After a holiday, hit the card shops and buy up the leftover decorations to use next year. You'll never know what you can find!

Mary Coppenbarger

To add to these great ideas: paper table cloths also make good bulletin board backgrounds; the post office will give you their advertising posters for new stamps after they are done with them, if you ask for them; I buy lots of calendars every July -- they are often only a dollar a piece, and they make great visual aids.

Kelley Paystrup

Try thrift shops for used cheap draperies for sound deadening. Pin student work to these.  You can also have a paint party some evening. Have students bring used paint from home.

John Triplett

Teachers in any area can get a 10 percent discount at JoAnn Fabric stores. I'm not sure about the details of the program, but it might be worth looking into if a store is located nearby.

Terri Kaufman

I too was on a very limited budget and needed to spruce up my ugly classroom. I raided the teacher workroom (even the elementary school's work room) and made a bunch of stuff out of butcher paper.

I went through a quote book and got quotes on writing, character, humor, life, reading, etc. I used markers, different colored butcher paper, and random drawings, and made my own posters. When you laminate them, they will look much better. Then I hot glued them all over the room. The posters themselves aren't that hot to look at, but when you throw them all up in your room, the varying colors, shapes, and designs really come together.

I also make posters out of different things, such as the comic page, or cut out pictures of a bunch of things from magazines, calendars, etc. (like flowers, smiley faces, etc. -- sort of a decoupage).

Also, for a bulletin board or just wall decor idea, I go to my card maker program on my computer, pick a neat or appropriate graphic and print it out. Make an overhead of it at school, put it on the overhead, and draw the giant-sized graphic on white butcher paper. Color, cut out, and laminate. I do this for my bulletin boards (which are a huge challenge to me) and I do this for random graphics I like to blow up and glue to the walls. I have giant suns, flowers, and geometric designs on my walls. Finally, hang stuff from the ceiling, if your ceiling will allow it. I've got cheap ivy vines hanging around (Wal-Mart, $3.00 each), and we recently hung snowflakes from the ceiling (they were also haiku poems, too). Now I get comments every day from students and colleagues on the appearance of the classroom.

Jennifer Jones

Did someone mention using an overhead projector? Photocopy any picture onto an overhead and shine it on the wall. Sketch the outline and then color or shade in. I had portraits of Faulkner, Poe, and Dickinson with Baldwin on the way when I was transferred out of the room to a larger room. The portraits are still there. I'm having a 15' x 8' kitchen god painted onto one ugly wall of my new room. No one's complained yet and the kids love the majesty. Now, if I can figure how to cover the entire ceiling with The Bard . . . .

Mark Heydon

Don't know how many of you know the Syracuse Cultural Workers catalog and products, but I got their calendar this year, made an order based on just what was listed on the last page and just got an absolutely beautiful poster. There are dozens of buttons and stickers, many simply clever or amusing, and lots of green/peace and justice stuff as well. Buttons I hadn't seen before and liked:

The most violent element in society is ignorance.
--Emma Goldman

It's Too Bad That The People Who Really Know How To Run The Country Are Busy Teaching School

Many of their products are designed or supplemented for educational use. The catalog is free, fun and inspirational. Here's their email address: workers.org. Here's the Web address: http://www.syrculturalworkers.org

Judith Angelo

Thank you for all the suggestions! I am compiling a list of suggestions for the coming weeks and years. Again, I am very grateful to all of you.

Kathryn Wilson