Last year, I wanted to bring a little more fun into the classroom so I decided to add a couple of strips of LED lights to our classroom lighting. It was so cool and made our classroom a more fun and unique place that this year I decided to take our classroom lighting to the next level! And I’ve been getting a tons questions about our lighting so I wanted to share some details of the lighting!
The lights are color changing LED lights from Amazon. They are actually flexible strips with a sticky back so they can really be placed anywhere!
So, the lights have a sticky back but it’s not great so I use Scotch Permanent Mounting Tape! This eliminated the frustration of the lights falling down!
I placed the lights around our word wall, our Smart Board, and along the top of our cubbies. AND I placed strips on the ceiling over our whole group area! This really illuminates the entire classroom in color!
We can even make patterns in the lights! Yesterday I made a rainbow with our lights!
And the best part is that we can even make the lights flash! Which is PERFECT for our end of the day dance parties! We end our day with a dance party everyday to celebrate our day togehter!
So, now let’s address a few things!
- If we have a student with sensory issues or epilepsy, then obviously we would not make the lights flash. And we can set them to just WHITE if needed. The lights can also be dimmed so we can still use them SAFELY!
- What fire marshall? We are blessed to have a fire marshall who lets us have lights!
Finally, here’s another way to give students control of their classroom: they choose the colors. In our classroom we don’t have classroom jobs. We have a BOSS of THE DAY! How do we choose this boss? Simple. I just go down my roster and whoever is next on the list is the BOSS OF THE DAY! The Boss is our line leader, calendar helper, and they write the morning message. AND they get choose the light color for the day!
And that’s how we use the lights in our classroom!
You can see our full classroom reveal here!
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10 comments
I have to ask… does your school give you a budget for the beginning of each year? How much of your own money do you spend? I’ve spent $200+ so far and our school district doesn’t provide teachers with any money and we get very few school-provided supplies. Most of our families are low-income, so many do not purchase supplies from the list or give donations. I struggle to make my classroom what I’d like it to be for my kids because I just don’t have the money to do that. Your classroom is just amazing! I love it!
We only get approximately $200 as well. The rest comes out of our own pockets.
How many sets did you purchase to light your room?
10!
Hi! I’m looking to get lights this year. Do they all connect together so you don’t have a bunch of cords going down to the outlet? What is a good way to plug them in without having a bunch of cords running down the wall? Thanks so much for sharing your tips and tricks!
They CAN connect together.
For those 10 rolls, do they connect with each other? Do you have 10 individual remotes? Use 10 individual outlets?
1 Remote controls them all!
I’m also curious to how you wired them with the plugs so that you don’t have a mess of electrical cords everywhere.
Very carefully! lol