Teacher time...
I have found that having a classroom theme and perfecting it by incorporating your evaluation rubric, standards, and student interests takes my classroom and students to a whole new level. 

My classroom theme is a Cafe / Chef theme.  My students LOVE it and I'm able to do so many creative things with it.  Here are some pictures to give you an idea.  Below you will see Accountable Talk that Sizzles bacon and eggs displayed with real pans. Then you will see a red 6 foot picnic table with a dry erase panel board on top for my students to work out math problems on.  Next you will see my chef themed calendar and convection oven.  My students love to turn their work into the oven.  Top rack is for ELA, middle rack is for Math, and the bottom is for Science/S.S.  The next picture is my small group table.  I covered it in white contact paper and red dry erase dots that give each student his or her own space to work.  I purchased the red dots from Amazon.com.  Then you'll see my personal kids working at the cafe table that is painted red with a dry erase panel board on top.  My students enjoy reading and taking notes in the Reading Cafe.  Then you will see a picture of my built in cabinets that I covered in dry erase white contact paper and I added the CAFE reading signs (C-Comprehension, A-Accuracy, F-Fluency, E-Expand Vocabulary), Fast Math points, AR points, Birthdays, and Schedule.  The next to last picture shows how I put a panel board on the back of my cubbies and I covered it with chalkboard contact paper so that I could create a welcome sign like in some cafes and resturants.  Finally, the last picture is of POW TIDE Pancakes.  I went to a Learning Leader Common Core training this summer and we learned about using POW TIDE to teach students to write informatively.  (P-Pull apart the promt, O-Organize your thoughts, W-Write and say more, T-Topic Sentence, ID-Important Detail, E-Ending)  TIDE is done during the O(organize) stage of POW. Again, my students LOVE this and respond wonderfully to everything we do in class. I'll post more pictures soon.  I have a Teachers Pay Teachers store and Pinterest.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Jeni-Sanders/Page:1
http://www.pinterest.com/jenisanders/