Come ho preparato la mia aula a casa

I teach mostly adults in my classroom, because classes with kids always take place at their houses. I wanted my classroom to look professional and welcoming, but at the same time colourful and fun.</p>Truth be told, when it came to furnish and decorate my classroom it didn’t hurt that my husband is a very talented designer with an amazing taste for beauty ;-)

This is what we came up with.

THE COLOURS

About five years ago, we bought the beautiful buttercup yellow OneLess desk by Heckler Design. Today, it’s not only where I spend all my time preparing classes, but it’s also one of my favourite pieces of furniture.

When the time came to choose a colour for my brand, I had no doubt: buttercup yellow! And when the time came to choose the colours for my classroom, I wanted to play around my desk: that’s how it all became buttercup yellow and red. And I love it!

THE SPEECH BUBBLE WHITEBOARD

Apart from the desk, everything else is from Ikea (including the cute round stool cushions). The speech bubbles that I use as my whiteboard are painted on the wall with a special whiteboard paint by IdeaPaint (unfortunately I can’t take credit for it as it was my husband’s idea).

THE TABLE WHITEBOARD

That’s correct, we also painted the top of the table with the same whiteboard paint. It was a genius idea (my husband, again): I use my table whiteboard mostly to write vocabulary or short sentences the students can’t spell.

I also learnt to write upside down (it’s a useful skill to have if you want a whiteboard table!) so I don’t have to tilt my body sideways in order to write.

THE LABELS

The red and yellow labels on the walls were my idea. I wanted to spicy up the classroom a bit and to do it in a way that was useful for my students. I’m sure they will never forget how to say “desk” or “clock” in English or Italian ;-)

I simply took thick red and yellow papers, cut the shapes, wrote the words using a thick black marker and then had them laminate. And this is the result (oh, the clock is from Ikea as well).

THE “GUEST ROOM”

The clock wall was looking quite empty and sad, so I placed a decorative shelf with an alphabet painting, a plant, my business cards, and a vanilla candle that I light every day before my first class.

Also, as you can probably see from the red label, the shelf is right above a red sofa-bed (Ikea again) that my family can use when they come visit.

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