Organizing...Many Pieces!

As we head back into our classrooms (or spaces), we clean, purge, organize and prepare the best we can for the little humans that will be with us for the next 10 months.  It is a fresh time.

Puzzles have been a staple in our first grade classrooms the past couple years when we realized that it was becoming a lost art.  It provides great critical thinking, problem solving, and organizational skills for out students.  But many did not know how to complete one.  So we worked on this.
This year my teammate has added memory games.  These help to support student concentration and visual memory. Not to mention, it is a way for students to ease into their days calmly.

One problem...both games require many pieces.  And we are talking about little kids-pieces get dropped, lost, misplaced. (Okay-let's be honest-I'm an adult and do the exact same thing to small pieces).

My teammate has put each of the memory games and puzzles into small plastic containers.  They are clearly labeled with the picture of the game/puzzle on them.  Students know exactly what they are working on because they are so clearly marked.

She also added a number to each piece and container.  This means when a piece does end up on the floor, a table, or another box--it can easily be placed back into the correct plastic box.

Sometimes it can be these small changes that add calmness to a classroom.  And that calmness might be just what a student needs.

Chair Pocket Alternative

Organization.  I love it.  Organizing, reorganizing, then organizing again.  My teaching location has changed many times in my career; therefore, I have had lots of practice.  And I am not complaining.  Each year it gives me a chance to rethink what I keep, what I pitch, and how I make it all fit.

One important piece to my guided reading and guided math groups are chair pockets.  This is where we house our book baggies (filled with leveled readers for each kid) and our math journals that are used during guided math.

Just to clarify...Our school is departmentalized.  So these groups do occur in two different classrooms.

The chair pockets have been so helpful.  But I have found that over time, the kids are left with very little room to actually sit on the chair.  The book baggies and notebooks end up taking up so much room!  And I cannot flip the pockets around because all the items and baggies end up on the floor.

It is not the fault of the chair pockets but the fault of all our great learning (and probably the teacher that allows the books to stay in the baggies for a good many weeks).

Then I came across some baskets at IKEA and I just couldn't NOT try them out!

We used zip ties to hold the baskets onto the back of chairs.  Honestly, I was not sure how it was going to work out.  Would they be too heavy and make the chair fall all the time?  Would they be too bulky and in the way?  Would they drag the ground?

Nope.

Actually, I have really liked them.  The bags fit in them so nicely.  No more bulky pockets that leave little room for the kids to actually sit.  The notebooks also fit really well and are out of the way when they are not needed.

Yep.  I think I like this alternative.  The chair pockets will still have a place in our classroom, just not in my guided reading or guided math groups.  And for now...I am loving this organization.

Empty Cereal Boxes.?...... SAVE THEM!

For the last two years, our firsties have stored their writing in binders.  Last year my desks got a little crammy (is that even a word?) with four binders in there, so this year I decided to change things up.  Fingers crossed this will work. :)  I'm still using binders for each writer, but this year as a portfolio.  I'm storing these.... well somewhere, I guess I should figure this out too.  Thank goodness for this blog hop, maybe I'll find an idea.:)

So, I felt like I needed to be creative with the space inside of our student desks since up to four children could potentially be sharing one.  .....IDEA ALERT......How many of you out there love a good bowl of cereal? Can I get a woot, woot?!?  My family would eat cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday if I let them.  I can't say that I'm against this practice, so we eat cereal at least once, maybe twice, but NEVER three times, per day. Except on the days we do because that's how we roll. :) With so much cereal eating going on, I had the *bright idea* to start using those boxes instead of recycling them. The Family Size cereal boxes seem to work best.  I may or may not have put that size on our grocery list more than one time this summer. Don't judge, I just love me some cereal!  :)

All you need to do is cut off the flaps at the top and voila.... storage solution!  Currently we are fitting two folders and two notebooks in each box. 

Since this idea came to me a little late this summer, I sent out an email to our district begging pleading kindly asking for the Family Size Cereal boxes.  Through this email I found another teacher whose family needs to go with my family to Cereal Eaters Anonymous. This gave me about 12 extra boxes, but still less than the like 46 boxes I needed to put two in each desk. Luckily, our principal also had a few of the magazine boxes (like the book boxes many of you have from Ikea) laying around, so I offered to take those off her hands since I couldn't shove any more cereal down our girls throats.

 Both of these guys work amazingly for storing our "magic".
Happy Organizing!

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