With so many students visiting the library throughout the week, I begin to feel like I’m in battle with the constant disorganization of the table supply bins.
This is partly my fault, as I try to squeeze every last second out of my 40 minute classes that I leave very very little time for emphasizing the importance of cleaning up!!!!
While I take a lot of the responsibility, it is also just the nature of supply bins. Each table overflowed with scissors, pencils, erasers, crayons, glue sticks (put back with missing caps); and long plastic shelf markers. The distraction of the shelf markers alone is really enough to drive a teacher mad. This year, I will not do things just because that’s how it has always been done! As I start my, 32nd week of pregnancy, I am determined to do things so much more efficiently this year!!
Before
After
I’m sure that there are many issues that will occur as the year begins and continues, but for now, the neatness of the tables just makes me happy!!
In our school, all students are given a number; which is usually alphabetical for lining up and walking in the hallways. So this year, I created 30 supply bags, each with a number. (You can download a set of 30 numbers here!)
Students are only allowed to use the supplies in their number bag! The hope is that because it will only be shared by about 25 students, that each student will take more responsibility for the supplies and keep everything together and neat.
I bought these supply bags from School Specialty.
Each bag contains:
– 2 pencils
– Eraser
– Scissors
– Glue Stick
– Pack of 16 crayons
In addition to creating the bags, I moved the shelf markers off the tables to these baskets on top of the bookshelves. The shelf markers had numbers on them for each student, so I made sure to cover up the numbers, so students could get used to using any shelf marker during book checkout. Hopefully this saves time, as previously students looked for “their numbers.”
Have shelf markers like mine? Download the design for yours.
To put them on, laminate, cut and hot glue them right to your shelf markers!
