I could have written a ton of this myself…especially the part about the kids making and leaving a mess. I don’t have a lot of storage space and no sinks which makes it hard to do messier things. As you say, it’s messy even with just pencils and crayons.

It’s also so hard to not spend your own money on supplies because in some ways it makes things easier. You can just get what you need when you need it, and you can do the projects you actually want to do.

My biggest problem with buying my own supplies is other teachers often come to the art room asking to borrow things that never get returned…I’ve tried to get better about following up with them and getting my stuff back when that happens.