21st Day... Book Boxes

Well, it's a little hard to sneak into school when you arrive to find that the principal, the secretary, and two custodians are already there when you arrive! I am so lucky to adore the people I work with, so there were hugs and conversations, and I had a chance to empty the boxes out of my car. There wasn't much time to spend in my room though. Alas, after planning all of the details of that (intended) covert operation, I forgot my camera!

So, I've switched gears to talk about my book boxes. And while my August posts are supposed to be about my back-to-school organizational strategies, this one requites some "background knowledge," so pardon the preface before I get to the part about the plastic bins!

Among teachers, the word "book boxes" often refers to the personal collections of books that kids have at or bring to their desks. We don't have those in sixth grade, although we do have a "book box" on each table where the independent reading books for group of kids are stored. I'll talk about those boxes in a different post.

Love these "Tots," available from Krista Wallden HERE at TpT

The book boxes I am referring to hold the materials that are used during literacy "rotations." My approach to literacy instruction is probably an amalgam of lots of approaches, and I am constantly adjusting it in an attempt to meet kids' needs. With 32-or-more kids, I usually have five groups with six or seven kids in each group.  I rarely have extra help, so I need to make sure that all of the kids are engaged in productive learning tasks while I work with a small group of students for guided reading. My strategy is an odd mix of "CAFE" and Centers, and it involves both student-selected and teacher-assigned tasks.

Usually one of the rotations involves reading from a collection of books and then doing some kind of writing. Many of my book collections are non-fiction, and the tasks include note-taking skills so that students can reference the text as they engage in expository or opinion/argument writing. The books below are Time for Kids biographies. I also have collections of subject-specific books such as rain forest animals or continents or natural disasters.

Some of the book collections are genre-specific, when I try to push a group of readers to try on something new, like science fiction. And some of the books are author-specific. Here is a Shakespeare collection that I used as a prelude before some of my readers took on the challenge of a passage from William S., himself.

I think teachers are legendary for their ability to collect two things... Books. And plastic bins. I am passionate about both! My OCD tendencies push me towards having all of my bins matching.  In the case of my book boxes, I have most of the books stored in the flipboxes (made by Rubbermaid) shown below. (I also have "standing baskets" for book collections that are too tall to fit in the flipboxes.) The main advantage of using the same type of bins for storage is that they stack easily. I also love these because you can affix a label to the side for easy identification.

I hate to spend too much time searching for things. I'd rather spend my time planning what to do with the items. Storing my book collections in this way has made it so much easier to find what I need in order to prepare lessons and activities. When these are used with a group of students, I often hand them the box with the directions and any other necessary materials tucked inside.

How do you store your book collections? Do you do guided reading in an upper grade classroom? What are the other kids doing while you work with a small group?

27th Day: Color-Coded Boxes for Storing Materials

Well, if you've read any of my other posts, you'd think I have some serious OCD tendencies. And you would be right! Oddly, these very tendencies keep me only half organized. I like to have things organized, but that takes a long time. So, often, I end up in this terrible cycle between hyper-organized and completely chaotic--or, if we're working on a positive spin that day: "awaiting organization."

When you have been teaching for nine million thirty years, you accumulate a lot of stuff. I honestly think that happens because we often have so little, we will take anything we can get. If it is not a continuous process of purging, you end up with what most teachers experience all too quickly: Materials Overload!

In an effort to keep things at least "categorized," I have turned to "the colored bin system." {Insert major shout out to my friends, Office Depot and DJ Inkers clip art!}

I know, without using much brain power, that if I need to find the books, activities and materials for teaching about decimals, there is a good chance they will be in a blue box.  Math materials always usually are supposed to go in the blue boxes. When all is right with the universe, you might even find those items in a labeled box, probably something with "decimals" on the label.

Imagine the opening to a scary movie... "Da da da... What you are about to see may be shocking. You may wish to avert your eyes..." If I showed you my garage, you would hear screaming! As I have chronicled before, that space remains less-than-organized. But in the midst of the tumult, you will find some gems of organization... all thanks to those covered bins!

So, here's a bit of evidence to show my system. It is definitely a work in progress. If all goes well, I will have everything in place in a few years... right before I retire!

I took a picture of two boxes from each "collection." I'll leave it up to your imagination to determine how many more boxes are not photographed. Here goes nothing..

Science materials...

Math Materials...

Writing materials...

Reading materials...

Oh, how I wish everything was put away and that I could find anything that I needed just by peeking into a colored box. Alas, that is not true. There is more than one bin labeled like this...

And, as of this summer, there's a new bin in town...

So, that's my system! As long as things make it to the right colored bin, I have half a chance of finding them. And, even with the attempt to go paperless, there are still rock samples and props and treasured picture books to support learning. In other words, there may WILL always be stuff to organize and store!

How do you keep your materials organized? Any tips or tricks that you have found useful to ensure that you find everything you need?