Over the past months, I've been cleaning out a classroom, while teaching a handful of 3rd graders. This was a last minute move (yet, it was my choice) and I've suffered with my organization since.
I had the pleasure of cleaning out a classroom packed with
3 decades worth of unusable supplies and complete crap! The twist to this whole move, was that I had
1 week to clean house, move my items in, organize, and plan! The retired teacher (37 years to her credit) took 6 weeks to go through her treasures, took off with 20 boxes, and left me months worth of cleaning.
I've highlighted some of the
gems that I threw out, recycled and donated!
The Vintage Cigar Box: This was an awesome find! Not only is it a cigar box, it had a price tag on it from BYU. The cigars were only 25 cents a piece! I took a calligraphy class in college and it is not an easy art to master- especially with ink. These particular calligraphy pens were the real deal- complete with metal nibs. I had nightmares of what the classroom would look like after experimenting with these tools, India black ink and 8 year old students! It's messy enough with watercolors- but what in the hell was she thinking?
Powder Paint: We use pre-mixed tempera paint in the classroom these days. I do remember the days that powder tempera paint was used. I even thought the bubbles that were left behind gave my paintings character- this was 27 years ago. These particular powder paint tins (yes tins) were from a family of 12. They're made by Crayola when they had a plant in New York, NY...before zip codes were invented! Vintage- absolutely. Safe- probably not. Chance of getting lead poisoning- thought I'd avoid it.
Now that I think of it, I probably should have put them in a hazardous waste bag.
Ancient Gauze: The Red Cross is a super organization. This was a super addition to my mom's collection of vintage first aid supplies and such. There's nothing better than having gauze from the 1960's to soak up blood from a bloody nose or ripping out baby teeth from the kids! Along with the gauze were 100+ wooden splints, 2 woolen army blankets, and a 25 year old pillow. I knew that she (the teacher) was a afraid of earthquakes, but to be frank, I'd be running like a mad woman with the kids under my arms if they needed a splint. I'm on the second floor. I did keep the splints for the kids to paint. If we don't get our craft on, they're gone this spring.
The Glue Factory: If I didn't know better, I would have thought that there were cows living in my cupboards and whenever the glue was out, a new bottle would pop out in an instant. This is only half of the glue hoard- no joke. The more I dug into the cupboards, the more glue bottles I found. There was Glue All, School Glue, glue sticks, book binding glue, fabric glue, some kind of glue that had a price tag from the 1980's, and paste (I totally had a Billy Madison flashback with I saw the paste). I think I supplied an entire grade level with glue this school year.
The Paper Forest: I couldn't get over how many reams of paper I came across. I was blown away. I felt guilty. I a big believer in kids using both sides of their paper, reusing paper from the printer and copier, and recycling. What was even worse was at the end of the school year, the teacher was ordering more paper. Apparently this paper didn't have the right kind of lines, or the colors weren't right, blah, blah. I haven't ordered any paper for the kids. I gave away 25 reams to other teachers in the building. I had already bought notebooks (at least they were only ten cents a piece) and I gave those to an upper grade teacher.
A friend that I grew up with just got a job with Tree Utah- I think I need to contact him to see about planting some trees to make up for the excess of paper reams in the classroom.
In the next post I will sharing the vintage posters that I dug out. We (the music teacher and my 3rd grade co-teachers) named a few of them. A few of the posters came in Community series (police and firefighters). The SLCPD and Sugarhood were featured in the 1960's- classic!
If you are appalled, keep your mouth quiet, and buy something! It will make you feel better because you contributed to my therapy of getting these treasures out of my house! 
Now that the boyfriend and I have hit the 5 year mark, I'll share my amazon.com shop, which is now 6 years old. The boyfriend is not available for sharing, so sorry.
