Patriotic Room Theme

As I mentioned earlier this week, I am changing my room theme. 
I will be surrounding myself with Red, White, and Blue, a patriotic theme.

I have included some tips for how I set up a new classroom.  (Since I have done it 5+ times in my teaching career!)
I decided to set up parts of my room now, instead of waiting until August. 
With changing grade levels I have enough to think about then!
Luckily my building is open during the day for one more week, thanks to summer school.
Thanks for our custodians for cleaning my room early, too!

I decided to start with general decor and bulletin boards. 
Colorful bulletin boards just make me happier to set up the rest of the room!
Plus your bookshelves or other furniture can be pushed to the center, out of the way.

Here are my tools:

Plus my trusty digital camera, but I couldn't a pic of that!

Of course meauring is the first task. 
I like to mark what I think will work.  I will let that marinate in my brain over the weekend, and see if I like it on Monday, when I put up the bulletin boards.

Do you have any long bulletin boards?

I have some fabrics already, but I have others to gather.

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I think the red polka dots will be my curtains.

Plus I am a curtain jumkie.  I HATE open shelves! 

I love using plastic table cloths for bulletin boards.  (The kind with no padding.)

They are cheap and don't discolor easily.
The only thing you need to consider is some table cloths only have patterns around the edges, not the middle.  It depends on what look you are going for.

Here are the other general items I found:

I LOVE lanterns.  Banners are everywhere!  Thank you PartyCity.

Thank you Target $1 section!

I will post more pics soon!
How do you start setting up a new room?

EmilyK