Early Educator: Decorating Ideas for Your First Classroom

Early Education is punctuated by rewarding, fun experiences that make teaching worth it, if you enjoy education, children, and achieved learning outcomes. That first classroom is particularly important to setting the right tone for your year, career, and learning what works over the long term. Here are a few ideas about what might enliven, uplift, and inspire your elementary, pre-K, or kindergarten students.

COLOR, STATIONS, and WALLS

Your classroom says a lot about who you are. Let yours be inviting, colorful, and interesting to be in. First, think about color. Primary colors are fantastic, and black and white works well for the Pre-K crowd. Some combination, like color stations, makes some sense. You might even color code the various corners and nooks of the classroom, using blue for the reading corner, and red for the play/blocks center. Once you decide on colors, you have many options, but always keep an eye out at fairs, stores, festivals, and libraries for posters and materials that you can use to enliven the space. And, there is the stencil set for making materials to put on the walls.

A WALL FOR THEIR WORK

Consider designating an area of the room, perhaps a wall, or the windows to the hallway, for displaying student work. It’s easy to tie in work to the themes you have chosen for the year, for example "change" or "how things grow." Decorating this area of the classroom or window (some use the wall outside the classroom) could include adding a cork board for ease of putting things up. But here, you may wish to make your own poster, or cut words out of magazines, etc. to make a collage. Bubble letters, and making your own posters can look less than professional, but that’s the point of elementary school: It’s not a polished space. Kids like things that the teacher has made him or herself, as well.

MAKING LEARNING STATIONS

Many elementary teachers include a classroom pet like a turtle or hamster, and decorating for this is as easy as buying an old aquarium, and getting to work finding the right pet at a local pet store. Beyond that, making the learning stations is actually easy.

Most elementary classrooms, or pre-K, have various learning areas of the room. Old bookcases can help create a library, along with some desks. pre-owned furniture like a couch or loveseats can make a reading center. Wooden blocks, dolls, and stuffed animals can create a free play center, and art supplies can be used at desks during station periods. In addition, the stuffed animals and dolls can be called into use in decorating and look great in a window or along window ledges.

No matter what you choose, do it big. As any graduate of a UC education masters online degree will tell you, big letters and bright colors are great for catching eyes, and getting kids excited about the new units they will learn about. A mural on the wall is a terrific idea, and you can cut out pieces of wallpaper–trees or frogs or other things–to paste inside your mural, to lend it a more textured and professional touch.