During their time at Canopy Life, our summer team got to assist Teacher Pip in an overhaul of the school’s Imagination Room. The classroom was brought into reality last year in memory of our friend Angie. Shelves and cubbies in the room are home to piles of books, sketchpads, and art supplies. Our students see these resources as prized possessions, and it is not uncommon to peek in the room and see five or six students in a huddle on the floor with a book in the middle of them. (You can read more about the invention of the space in the post The Imagination Room: Bigger Than a Room.)

What happens in the Imagination Room is critical in exposing our students to new ideas, fueling their creative abilities, and strengthening their reading comprehension and understanding of English. We want the worlds in the books our students read to be as alive on the walls around them as they are on the pages of their books. Inspired by the book Only One You by Linda Kranz, and a painting the students created with the help of our 2015 Summer Team, we set out to give the room an under-the-sea vibe.

The best part about the decorations we used to create this aesthetic is they were inexpensive and assembly didn’t require special skills or tools. Some or all of the elements can be implemented in bedrooms, playrooms, and classrooms anywhere. As with all great crafty DIY projects, it all started with Pinterest…

Water and Sea Turtles
Jellyfish
Kelp Curtains
Bubbles

Below are some pictures from the project. A big thanks to Pip, Brynn, Joe, and Tim for making our underwater adventures possible:

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Before

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Teacher Pip

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Under the Sea

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