Classroom Decorating Ideas for Teachers

By August, summer is in full-swing with its abundance of sunshine and steamy hot temperatures, but for many parents and teachers, August means it’s time to start thinking about back to school preparations. If you’re a teacher, cleaning, organizing, and decorating your classroom is likely on your to do list. While creating an exciting and inspiring space for your kids to learn and grow this year should be fun, it often becomes a frustration for many because of small (if not non-existent) budgets.
We scowered the web to create this list of DIY classroom decorating ideas that are budget-friendly and use items and materials many people have lying around the house or are inexpensive to purchase. From the ceiling to the walls, furniture, windows, and floor, your kids will love their new classroom décor!
Ceiling
This is often one of the most forgotten pieces of classroom decorating real estate. Adorning the ceiling with colorful decorations helps pull the entire room together and can make the space feel bigger by drawing the eye upwards.
Create this whimsical piece by tieing ribbons around a hula hoop and then hang over your reading area or craft table.

Truffula flower pom-poms are super easy to make and can be used in so many different ways; hang them from the ceiling, turn them into a tree, or use white and blue paper to create a cloud-filled sky! Get the directions for how to make these here.

Walls
Forget boring, plain-white walls! One of our favorite decorating ideas on the list turns board games into wall art by mounting them on the wall. Not only do you now have colorful wall art for no extra cost, but you’ve also eliminated bulky boxes and freed up some storage space. Get more details here.

Using vinyl transfers, you can make semi-permanent decals to be used on whiteboards, chalk boards, and even cubby spaces. This is great for use in spaces where you can’t use staples and are easy to remove when they are no longer needed. Get more information here.

Windows
With just tissue paper and fabric starch you can make these adorable window clings! Inexpensive and easy to remove, it’s the perfect classroom decoration for special occassions and holidays that need to be changed frequently. Have each kiddo make their own tissue paper window art and work together to create and assemble a masterpiece – it’s some good, old-fashioned, messy fun! Get the easy step-by-step instructions here.

If buying curtains is definitely not in your budget, you can make an inexpensive window hanging using ribbons or streamers. Similar to the hula hoop ceiling decoration, tie colorful ribbons and streamers around a curtain rod for window cover that literally cost a couple dollars to make!

Floors
Classroom rugs can bring so much into the learning environment. Not only do they add a fun splash of color, but they are also great for dividing the space to be used for different activities and lessons, and can help make the classroom feel more comfortable and inviting. There are many different styles of classroom rugs covering everything from the alphabet and counting, to reading, math, and geography!
Individual seating squares are not only fun for inside the classroom, but because they are portable, they are perfect for story time in the park and lunches outside in the grass. An added benefit is their small size that makes them easy to store on shelves, in a bin, or even in cubby spaces.

If you’re looking for a more permanent flooring option, there are thousands of full-size classroom rugs to choose from! Shopping rug sales and buying factory seconds is the best way to get the kids area rug you want and still stay within your budget. Shop clearance classroom rugs here.

Furniture
Give plain, boring bookshelves and cold, metal desk and filing cabinets a much-needed make-over by adding cheap stickers or inexpensive contact paper to them. Try using different shape stickers or various patterned contact paper to make it easy for kids to remember what goes where! Check out these great examples of what a little sticker magic can do.

Top 5 Kids Room Decorating Ideas on Pinterest

These days, it’s so easy to make your home look like it deserves its own spread in Good Housekeeping, especially when it comes to kids’ room ideas, the possibilities are boundless! Luckily for you, there are many websites, such as Pinterest, that have an entire online community contributing inventive ideas all in one place.

Check out our top 5 favorite kids’ room ideas on Pinterest below:

1. DIY Bookshelves – When it comes to children’s rooms, a large, bulky bookshelf is highly unnecessary. With curtain rods, brackets and any fabric of your choosing, you can easily make DIY book slings for all of your little ones favorite reads. Incredibly customizable and easy to make, these makeshift book slings will eliminate the need for traditional, oversized bookshelves, opening the room and creating more space for playtime.





2. Unique Bed Frames – Car bed frames and princess canopies are classics when it comes to outfitting your child’s sleeping area, but if you’re looking for ideas that are a little more unique, creative and modern, Pinterest is a great place to look. We love the idea of a house-shaped bed frame or a teepee lounge area since kids love playing house and building forts. With numerous DIY guides, making a teepee is incredibly easy and fun. Your kids will love creating their very own teepee, helping to pick out the fabric and deciding exactly where it will go in their room!





3. A Rug that Pops – Flooring choices are usually one of the last few items on the list when it comes to decorating kids’ rooms. Usually, the walls and furniture take precedence over the floor. However, a bright, colorful area rug designed especially with kids in mind adds dimension and texture to a room for not a lot of money. It also creates a soft surface for play time, reading and any other activities they love to do. There are endless types and styles available from safari animal themed to letter and number rugs, and even music-inspired carpets. The best part is that simply switching out the area rug can change the look and feel of any room.





4. Traditional White Walls - While we’re on the subject of incorporating bright colors in the overall design of a kid’s room, a growing trend we love is sticking to classic white walls. When it comes to choosing paint colors, many people are drawn to cutesy pastels or even decorative wall paper covered with baby animals and race cars. Keeping the walls of a room white helps to make the space feel bigger, more open, and is the perfect canvas for the rest of the room to be designed around. Contrast stark white walls with brightly-colored decorations like fun throw pillows, area rugs, and even art on the walls. And when it comes time to update the room, simply change out the smaller aspects instead of having to repaint, or even worse, remove wall paper that your kid has out-grown.





5. DIY Wall Art – Let your creativity shine by adorning the walls with art work you and your kids create together. Not only will they have fun making their own wall art, they will love the one-on-one time they get to spend with you. An added bonus: personalized wall art makes perfect keepsakes for when your kids are all grown up! Some of the cutest ideas we’ve found on Pinterest are these simple monogrammed wall art and puffer fish paintings that use a fork instead of a paintbrush.

6 Most Popular Types of Classroom Rugs

Are groans and yawns familiar noises in your classroom? The source of this disinterest could be from something as little as the layout or design of the room. Whether you’re a teacher who struggles with bored and distracted students, or you’re a parent who’s trying to provide an alternative source of intellectual stimulation for your kids, children’s classroom rugs may be just what you need! They remind children that learning can be fun and interactive, rather than being somewhat of a chore. Classroom rugs give kids a nice break from lecture-style seating arrangements, opening up the learning environment to be more engaging and collaborative.

For your assistance, here’s a list of the best classroom rugs for children:

Alphabet Rugs – The first step of literacy is learning the alphabet. Teaching kids how to read and write is a fundamental aspect of daily communication, and alphabet rugs help younger children become familiar with letters and phonetics. Have your early thinkers reciting their ABC’s in a circle and they’ll be associating their letters with words in no time! A couple of our best-sellers are the Fun with Phonics and the Sunny Day Learn & Play.

Music Rugs – Music, on its own, is an incredibly important method of teaching. It not only invigorates the mind, but it does so in a way that’s fun and enjoyable. No wonder why all those kids’ shows are always bursting out in song! With music rugs, kids can learn music notes, make and practice rhymes, and even play musical chairs on the rug itself. An absolute favorite among music teachers is the Noteworthy rug that makes teaching little ones about music fun and easy with colorful music note graphics. Warning: dancing and laughing absolutely guaranteed!

Map Rugs – Geography is one of the toughest subject matters for children because it requires such a large scope and perspective. Whittle it down for them with easy-to-learn map rugs. These popular kids rugs will place continents, states and major landmarks at children’s fingertips so they can learn about the world they live in. It’s also a small perk when they notice how big they are; they’ll feel like they’re on top of the world! The Circletime Around the World and World Explorer rugs are fan-favorites among kids.

Bilingual Rugs – With America being the melting pot of all different kinds of cultures, it’s vital to teach the importance of learning primary as well as secondary languages to children. Spend half an hour on a bilingual rug once a day, and you can have students calling out objects, numbers, colors and even emotions in a second language. If you’re teaching your kiddos Spanish, be sure to check out the LenguaLink rug that helps teach them the alphabet, how to count in Spanish, and the Spanish pronunciation of common words like bird, shirt, and school.

Seating Rugs – One of the most popular styles among teachers, seating area rugs are a great way to create a cozy, comforting feel while brightening up the classroom. A teacher-favorite is the Lots of Dots classroom rug because the colorful dots are a fun and clever way to organize students during seated activities like reading and sharing time. Seating rugs feature more general images and patterns so they are more versatile and can be used to teach a variety of subjects from basic mathematics to the complexity of the solar system.

Solid Colors, Stripes & Pattern Rugs – Placing various solid-color or patterned rugs throughout the classroom can help divide up the space so that it can be used for a variety of different activities. The best part is that when kids are seated on a certain carpet that has been designated for a specific lesson or activity, they’ll know exactly what is expected of them!

Brighten up your teaching space with colorful, educational rugs and get your students excited to learn! At RTR Kids Rugs, we offer a wide array of children’s rugs at discount prices that can make great additions to any school, church or daycare facility.