Best classroom buy?

[theluckiest]

So I've got to relocate from my lovely, spacious classroom to a much smaller, grottier one. Boo!!

I've been given a small budget to smarten it up and make it more appealing. What were your best buys? I'll have to put away my lovely reading tent but still want something fun and engaging.

It's KS1 so any ideas to brighten it up & use space wisely would be ace!!

Whats your budget?

Can you have the money or does it have to be stuff school can order?

If you can have the money I'd head to Ikea. Cheap and lots of stuff designed for small spaces.

I think a very simple classroom is best, especially for KS1.

I really don't think you need to buy anything.

The classroom really is grim. Thinking along the lines of a few cushions/ nice bookshelf, etc. It's for Y2. Budget £500.

I do love a pre-Sept trip to Ikea...

Do you have enough space for them to sit on the carpet as a class? If so a beautiful 'placement rug' with cunning dividers so you can organise how they sit is always a good classroom brightener.

I like this one.

If you had the rainbow one, you could then get a few of the small circular rugs from ikea for kids who needed to be 'outliers' .

You can get those rugs as individual stacking 'bum mats' too. They're good because then you can put them anywhere!

Not a teacher, but my kid's school has new tables with whiteboard surface on the top. They do maths on there, with whiteboard pens, for arrays, grouping and graphs. A roll of shiny white sticky book covering stuck on top of desks would do the same.

You can write straight onto most desks with a whiteboard marker. They wipe down fine as long as they are smooth and not porous.

Like the idea of stacking bum mats!