Teachers are some of the craftiest people out there but often have a low budget to get their classrooms ready! So they need to rely on their creative genius with a personal touch in order to add a bit of creativity to the classroom. Since it’s the back to school month, here are some simple and affordable DIY’s that are sure to get high marks.
First, the school room doorways are always fun to decorate heading back to school bit why not let the kiddos do the work. Cover a wall with wrapping paper or a plastic tablecloth from the dollar store and encourage students to write quotes from books they’re reading on the wall. Over time, a graffiti reading wall will form and kids will be excited to pick up a book so they can contribute to the wall all year long. This DIY project will get students excited about reading and also acts as a focal point of the classroom!
Parents need to stay informed about their child and connected to the teacher, so make sharing your contact information easy. Before parent teacher open house, create a QR code with all your info so parents can easily pull it up all on their smartphones. Not only will parents feel secure having the information, but this one step DIY allows you to focus on introducing yourself to parents and not having to recite phones numbers or email addresses all day. A win, win situation!
Dry erase markers can dry up quick and replacing them can get expensive; so try this pro-teacher tip: attach a piece of velcro to the marker and the other piece to the top of the white board. You will always have a place to put the marker and it will be easy to find. Remember to always let the marker hang upside down so the ink flows to the tip. To organize other small supplies, buy a spice rack from Walmart or Target to keep on your desk or in a closet nearby.
Classrooms can get germy fast! Remembering these two simple tricks will help prevent you and your students from getting sick.
1) Instead of handing out bathroom passes, give the student a bottle of hand sanitizer to ensure that they come back with clean hands. A big bottle can be bought at the dollar store and some pink and blue stickers can be added to have both a boys and girls “pass”. 2) A great way to keep the classroom clean is to occasionally hand out disinfectant wipes and have students clean their own desks. While this may not be considered your typical life hack, having the students clean off their desktops means that you won’t have to clean off every desk by yourself later and they are learning to keep their area clean.
And for all the students starting school, if you want your kids to kick off the school year right, thank your teacher in advance for an awesome year ahead with a special handmade DIY gift.
You’ll need:
– an empty glass jar; you can use those old pickle jars, salsa jars, pasta sauce jars, etc
– burlap ribbon
– accent ribbons, twine and embellishments
– white all-purpose glue
– hot glue
– craft scissors
Clean off the old labels from your jar, it’s easy if you run it under hot water to loosen the adhesive and peel it off.
Measure out a strip of burlap to fit around the jar. Then making sure the jar is dry, use your white glue and apply it on the sides of the glass jar and attach your burlap piece.
The next part is where you can get your creative juice flowing! Add ribbon to the base and top of the jar, or add twine to cover the edges. Using hot glue, add on any embellishments; for extra credit maybe even spell out the teachers name with scrabble pieces!
You can fill the jar with pencils to make the gift complete. This simple DIY craft will definitely get an A+ for thoughtfulness and your teacher will love it so much you may even be the teacher’s pet!
A special thanks to teachers everywhere.
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