Schooling by Heart: Classroom Overwhelm

One of my favorite things about a new school year is getting to organize and get everything ready for school. This year, I came to my new school in Malawi three weeks before school started. Now, that may seem like plenty of time for some, but when you are a crazy lunatic about classroom organization and themes . . . it isn’t that much time.

So, my first day in Africa I walked into a very nice sized classroom. In the classroom, there were two ceiling to floor bulletin boards that took up half the wall and were painted red and orange. Then, there was a blue wall, a yellow wall, and sea life painted over the other walls. For some, they might like all of these paintings and colors, but I was OVERWHELMED!

All I knew was that I had to cover it up, but how?? I was considering painting them, but I knew that the Vice Principal had them up there, and that future teachers might like them. So after looking around my room and looking through my three cupboards, I decided on fabric. I bought teal blue and purple fabric. I was not sure what I was going to do with them, but I knew that I had to cover up the walls.

Luckily, I had brought my staple gun from the states. So, I went to work. I started by stapling up fabric to cover up all the sea animals. Then, I stapled fabric up to cover the bright bulletin boards. I made my classroom a two tone classroom instead of the color overload that I started with. I know that not all teachers can use a staple gun in their classrooms, but fabric helps so much!!

I am borrowing my pictures of my “before” classroom because I forgot to take any. These are pics that a previous teacher took of my classroom.

So now, you can see what I did to transform the classroom!!

Here are some Before Pictures: