Throwing Out the Trash

I went to school today and worked for 4 1/2 hours!  What did I get done?  I cleaned out one drawer in my filing cabinet.  I can't believe all the stuff I had.  I threw away about 75% of what was in the drawer and I could have probably thrown out more.  This is what happens when a school closes and you change grade levels a few times and then return to the grade you love at a different school.  So that's 3 moves total!  I thought since I'm starting my second year in the same classroom that I better throw out the junk that I don't want or use.  Did I mention that I'm getting a new aide this year too?

Yes, I sat in on the interview for my new aide last week.  I hope she decided to take the job because I think we would work well together.  When you work that close to someone your practically married so it's best if we are a good match, but I'm not a difficult person to get along with either.

Before school let out, my previous aide, who retired, gave me a box full of Smart Pals.  I'm not sure who gave them to her, but I am excited to use them more this school year.  Check out the box.

Before school let out, I found some old workbooks and tore them apart and put the pages inside the Smart Pals.  My kinders loved this!!!  I allowed them to get one when they were finished with the journals.  I color coded them too for differentiation.  If you have these in your room, please share how you use them.  I would love to hear about it.

If you didn't know, I am having a giveaway at my Teacher's Notebook store for my Black and White Editable Classroom Décor.  I'm working on some more stuff that I will be adding soon.  One will be an interactive SMART notebook file.

Reading File Organization

     So I have spent a lot of time this year organizing my reading files and making it easier and quicker for me to plan and gather materials.  I have my files organized by reading story in a hanging file folder.  I bought large, plastic envelops with string closures to keep all of my masters so I do not accidentally hand them out.  I really wanted the envelops that close with Velcro, but Office Max did not have them.  Here is what my envelops look like:

     Notice on the outside of the envelop I have a label in the middle and in the upper, left corner.  I printed the larger label from Mrs. Lewis's Cyber Classroom.  This is a great site if you use Scott Foresman Reading Street in your classroom.  She has resources for K-5 on her site.  I love the large label because it tells me the unit, the name of the story, and all the skills for the week.  I printed the labels off, cut them out, and ran them through my sticker maker so that they would stick like mailing labels.  In addition to the large label, I used my label maker to make a smaller label that can be spotted from the top of the file cabinet.  See...

     Now you are probably wonder what all of the manila envelops and baggies are.  Well, these are my station activities that students complete independently and each one is based on the skills for the week and some are for period review.  Many of my stations fit in a Ziploc baggie or a large envelop that I have laminated, such as this one

 and this one

A few of my stations are file folder games like this

     Where do I get my stations?  I sometimes buy my station games like the ones shown above, but I also make them or find them online and print them out.  There are a lot of great ideas on the web and at places such as Teachers Notebook and Teachers Pay Teachers.  For every story, I have at least 5 stations and many of my station games and activities are in multiple copies.  This allows for more than one student to enjoy the same game or activity at the same time.  Also, I include some type of product with many of my station games and activities.  I have a few students this year that would not complete their stations if I did not require them to do something written.  Sometimes I will find a worksheet that goes with the skill or I will create a response sheet.  Overall, it has been easier to gather my materials for the week since I have started organizing my reading materials this way.  I hope to start organizing my math materials soon.