Tired of your boring old teacher’s lounge? Is your teacher’s lounge just a dumping ground for unused items in your school? It shouldn’t be! The teacher’s lounge is a great place for teacher’s to be able to relax and connect with others. If it is beautiful and inviting they will want to spend time there. Utilize your teacher’s lounge space for a purpose by implementing some of these great ideas below!
1. Choose a Theme
A lot of schools have themes for the year. Sometimes the theme is just a slogan they are going to focus on. Sometimes the theme gets carried throughout the school in the hallways decorations and classrooms. If your school already has a theme for the year, definitely carry that theme into the teacher’s lounge! If your school doesn’t have a theme you can still choose one for the staff lounge. Maybe it is a color palette, or farmhouse theme. It could be something more specific like a space theme or racing. Starting with a theme always helps me to get more creative and add those small touches to really make the lounge special.
2. Post Staff Birthdays
Post staff birthdays by month on a bulletin board. This let’s all staff know when it is someone’s birthday. Go a step further and celebrate birthdays in a special way. One suggestion might be a special snack or lunch each month to celebrate all the birthdays in that month. Another idea is to write a birthday card at the beginning of the year for all your staff and deliver them on their birthday.
3. Calendar of Events
Display holiday and school events on a calendar to keep all staff informed.
4. Staff Shout-Outs
Staff shout-outs are a great addition to liven up your teacher’s lounge. You could do a staff of the month, or stars for great things you see teacher’s doing in their room. Opening it up for all staff to be able to add to the shout out board is a great way to get teacher’s buy in and raise excitement about the shout outs.
5. Teacher Tips
I love creating a corner in my staff room for teachers to leave each other tips and tools. We are all experts at something! Often times teachers who are in different grade levels never really get a chance to talk to each other. Have a teacher tip corner or bulletin board allows them to get tips from each other. One suggestion might be to have a monthly topic for the teacher tip board. Something such as: classroom management, transitions, call and responses or giving feedback.
6. Motivational Signs
Create or purchase small posters and signs with inspirational quotes and hang them up around the lounge. These quotes can be such an encouragement for teachers when they are having a rough day. Seeing them day in and day out, they may even unconsciously memorize them and find themselves encouraging themselves and others using that quote. If you’ve chosen a theme for your teacher’s lounge, be sure to incorporate the theme into your motivational signs. You can search for tons of these types of signs online by typing in your theme.
Get all these decor items in my plant/”growth” theme decor pack below!
7. Data Wall
Collect data not only on student achievement but on use of instructional time, student engagement and student/teacher interaction. Post the data on a bulletin board and set goals with in. I talk more about collecting and using data in another post.
8. School Goals
Posting your school goals allows your staff to see them daily. So often at the beginning of the year, teams set goals but them never revisit them again. Create a bulletin board where you display your school goals. You can even add evidence and data to the board throughout the year to show how you are working towards the goal.
9. Interactive Bulletin Boards
I love to add one or two interactive bulletin boards for staff that can change throughout the year. At the beginning of the year you might have all staff write their personal goals or something about themselves and create a board display out of it. You can change it for the seasons or to represent things you are learning or working on as a staff.
10. Small Touches
Finish off your lounge and make it more comfy by adding plants, pillows or a rug. Soft lighting from lamps are also really nice. I hate the typical fluorescent lights in classrooms.
I’ve created several themed decor packs perfect for elevating your teacher’s lounge. Decorating according to your school’s school-wide theme for the year is a fun way to keep the lounge exciting, new and purposeful.
