21 first graders and big, long, WIDE tables. Not something I was used to after teaching EC and having student desks for 7 years. I had to decide how I wanted to organize my tables with materials for my students to easily access.
After much searching for ideas via Pinterest (the new Google), I stumbled across two ideas that I was going to combine and add my own lil spin to it.
Each table got a Table Caddy (these were def only .97 cents at Walmart during the back to school (college) sales. I printed out Table numbers, threw some ribbon on them, and BAM....ready to go.
Here's a picture of what goes inside each table caddy
Each student has a cup of crayons
They share a cup of markers which has two packs of markers in it
Their pencils
Under the table caddy are National Geographic Explorer magazines which I rotate out weekly
The orange folders are the student's morning work folders
At the end of each table are my crate shelves which look like this:
On the top of the crates there is a basket (hello fun neon green from Big Lots basket) which contains a cup of colored pencils, 4 pairs of scissors and the students library books. We also have our alphabet cards for Imagine It! stored in these baskets.
Beside the larger basket is a short skinny basket which includes back up pencils in case a pencil breaks or becomes dull, and 4 glue sticks.
The shelves hold dictionaries to use for writing, writing journals,and their IKEA book bins to be used for Read to Self (in the above picture we had not yet decorated their book bins) .
Recently we have added their Imagine It! folders as well.
Each table also has their own personal trashcan. (pictured to the right side of the crate shelves)
The organization is paying off as things are running oh so smoothly and the students have been taught how to manage their materials.
Coming soon.....I'll share how I use table leaders, table numbers, and table of the day!
Woop woop.
