Using 3M Velcro to Set Up Your Classroom

I'm linking up with other bloggers sharing their bright ideas! This year I had a stinkin' genius idea that will help teacher in all grade levels with setting up their classroom!


Do you have to take EVERYTHING off of your walls at then end of every school year? I do. It's so frustrating to me. All that time spent placing each item exactly where I want it to go. Then I have to take it down and start from scratch the next year. 

Previous methods:
1) Blue sticky is great for temporary items. But I work in Texas and it gets really hot here. Our school district turns off the AC over the weekends to save energy and it's always disappointing to come into your room and find half of your posters on the floor because the blue sticky got too hot.

2) 3M sticky tabs. These are great because they don't fall off of the wall! BUT you have to buy all new tabs every summer to stick everything back onto the wall when it comes time to set up your classroom again. It can be very expensive.

MOMENT OF GENIUS!

This year as I was standing in Office Max filling my basket with 3M sticky tabs I thought, "Why not use velcro?" 
I went out to Hobby Lobby and bought foam board and glued my posters and papers to the foam board using E6000 craft glue. *My teammate tried this but hot glued her items and some of them fell off of her foam board by the end of the year.* Any posters I would group together, for example my writing goals, were glued onto a foam board.


E6000 is great to use when you are gluing things onto your foam board. It doesn't dry immediately the way hot glue does so you have a couple of minutes to adjust and straighten everything. Once it's dry it's set and you won't have any problems! I even used it on my ribbon for the poster below.
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The 3M velcro tabs are the same on both side so they don't have a write or wrong side the way traditional velcro does. I used four velcro tabs on small posters and six tabs on larger posters. At the end of the school year I simply pulled all of my posters off of the wall and stacked them in my car. It took less than five minutes and I'll be able to put them right back up in August. We were allowed to leave the velcro tabs up on our wall. However, if I had to take them down it would have been easy enough to purchase more velcro to match to the back of my tabs on my posters and re-hang them. 

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I had all of my posters ready before we were allowed access to our rooms the week before school started. It was such a relief to know most of what I wanted up on my walls was complete it just one afternoon!

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For more bright ideas from more than 100 different bloggers, please browse through the link-up below and choose a topic/grade level that interests you. Thanks for visiting!






11 comments:

  1. Great minds...I use velcro for everything! Love your post!

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  2. Genius!! I'm definitely trying this bright idea! Thanks for sharing. :)

    Gladys
    Teaching in High Heels

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  3. A word of caution - I tried this once and the velcro took the paint off the wall and the whole room needed to be repainted... So make sure to test the velcro in an inconspicuous place before you put it all over the room.

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  4. Great idea!! The worst is when we come back form Christmas and it looks like someone took down all of our decorations! I spend way too much time putting it back up! Love this idea, girl!!
    Amanda
    Mrs. Richardson's Class

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  5. This is a great idea! Would make it so much easier to put things back up on the walls. Thank you for sharing this!
    Lori
    Conversations in Literacy

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  6. I use the command picture clips. That way I can change out my posters throughout the year. I put the clips up four years ago and they are still going strong!

    Meagan
    oodlesofteachingfun

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  7. Fantastic idea! Thanks so much for sharing.

    ~Laura
    Luv My Kinders

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  8. So SMART! I was just trying to decide how I was going to hang some of my stuff in the classroom for this next year and you just solved my problem. Thanks for sharing! Kristi
    Teaching Little Miracles

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  9. Jennifer, I have to share that I love this and do something very similar. I have used the velcro before and do love it. Here is one additional thing. You don't have to keep buying the velcro. Just buy the 3m sticky strips and adhere a new one to the velcro piece left over. Does that make sense?
    Mels
    Ms. K/1 ELL

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  10. Genius! Why haven't I thought of this before? Thank you for sharing this great tip! :)

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