Saturday, August 18, 2012

School Supply Extravaganza!

I absolutely LOVE the beginning of the year...mainly for the school supplies that roll into my classroom!  My first year of teaching I was hired late and was an "added" classroom, where they pulled kids from other rooms to make up my class, so I didn't get to enjoy the plethora of supplies.  Last year I piled all the crayons in a box, all the glues in a box, etc and had community supplies.   The only thing the students got to keep that they specifically brought was their scissors.  This worked fine for a while, but then when my whole community supply of glue ran out in about March, I realized I was not so much of a fan.  I just didn't think it was fair that there were kids who had only used one glue bottle the whole year and there were some that used gobs and gobs of glue and used up about five bottles.  Enter this method...
I have students put all their supplies in their cubby until I have time to sort through it.  Then, I fill up the pencil box they brought with their scissors, one glue bottle, and one box of crayons.  The rest of the glue bottles and crayon boxes go in a gallon bag, labelled with the child's name, and into the big basket.  The tiny baskets you see are for those optional supplies, like extra glue sticks, colored pencils, markers, dry erase markers and pencils.  These things do become community supplies because not everyone brings them and we don't use them all the time.  

Everything gets labelled that is not a community supply!  Binder, composition books, 2 cans of playdoh (one for my fine motor center and one for word work center), pencil box, and scissors.  You can see the binders labelled and some of the labelled playdoh in this pic. 
I asked each student to bring in two composition books (one for math journal and probably the other for the math journal when the first gets full).  I stack them into two piles with names on all of them so I have my two class sets.  I also asked students to bring in a pencil pouch to be their money pocket for the daily folder I send home each day.  I stuff these in a pocket of one of the folders I will use (in the blue basket) and stick a label on the front of the folder.  When I get time, I'll put the pencil pouch and the behavior chart, etc. in the prongs!
Whew!  That is my supply organizational system for this year.  When I get done, I'll store all the extras in the closet of my room. I would love to hear how you organize your supplies, so leave me a comment!  

Now for something fun...I was so excited about this stuff!  My parents this year are fabulous so far!  Some of them even brought me little goody baskets to Meet the Teacher, but I thought this was so creative:
I know it's sideways, but it's one of those jars of scenty-good smelly stuff that you stick the reeds in to make your room smell good.  And it's cotton candy scented, which fits perfectly with my sweet shop themed classroom!  Now you walk in and see all the candy, cupcakes, ice cream and can smell cotton candy!  Love it!  It's such a great accent!  Glad I don't have a frog or dog themed room....not sure how awesome a frog-scented room would be!






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Saturday, August 18, 2012

School Supply Extravaganza!

Posted by Jennifer Winters at 10:41 AM
I absolutely LOVE the beginning of the year...mainly for the school supplies that roll into my classroom!  My first year of teaching I was hired late and was an "added" classroom, where they pulled kids from other rooms to make up my class, so I didn't get to enjoy the plethora of supplies.  Last year I piled all the crayons in a box, all the glues in a box, etc and had community supplies.   The only thing the students got to keep that they specifically brought was their scissors.  This worked fine for a while, but then when my whole community supply of glue ran out in about March, I realized I was not so much of a fan.  I just didn't think it was fair that there were kids who had only used one glue bottle the whole year and there were some that used gobs and gobs of glue and used up about five bottles.  Enter this method...
I have students put all their supplies in their cubby until I have time to sort through it.  Then, I fill up the pencil box they brought with their scissors, one glue bottle, and one box of crayons.  The rest of the glue bottles and crayon boxes go in a gallon bag, labelled with the child's name, and into the big basket.  The tiny baskets you see are for those optional supplies, like extra glue sticks, colored pencils, markers, dry erase markers and pencils.  These things do become community supplies because not everyone brings them and we don't use them all the time.  

Everything gets labelled that is not a community supply!  Binder, composition books, 2 cans of playdoh (one for my fine motor center and one for word work center), pencil box, and scissors.  You can see the binders labelled and some of the labelled playdoh in this pic. 
I asked each student to bring in two composition books (one for math journal and probably the other for the math journal when the first gets full).  I stack them into two piles with names on all of them so I have my two class sets.  I also asked students to bring in a pencil pouch to be their money pocket for the daily folder I send home each day.  I stuff these in a pocket of one of the folders I will use (in the blue basket) and stick a label on the front of the folder.  When I get time, I'll put the pencil pouch and the behavior chart, etc. in the prongs!
Whew!  That is my supply organizational system for this year.  When I get done, I'll store all the extras in the closet of my room. I would love to hear how you organize your supplies, so leave me a comment!  

Now for something fun...I was so excited about this stuff!  My parents this year are fabulous so far!  Some of them even brought me little goody baskets to Meet the Teacher, but I thought this was so creative:
I know it's sideways, but it's one of those jars of scenty-good smelly stuff that you stick the reeds in to make your room smell good.  And it's cotton candy scented, which fits perfectly with my sweet shop themed classroom!  Now you walk in and see all the candy, cupcakes, ice cream and can smell cotton candy!  Love it!  It's such a great accent!  Glad I don't have a frog or dog themed room....not sure how awesome a frog-scented room would be!






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