Best Ever TpT Center Storage

Trial and error, trial and error! That's my middle name. I believe it has taught me more than any college program ever did! I'm always trying new things, and either they don't work, or they do! I'm always looking for ways to simplify my planning and organization and most of the time it takes much trial and error. I'm a seventh year SPED teacher and I'm still looking for the perfect method to teach and collect data on IEP goals, how to progress monitor effectively, how to develop the perfect multi-level lesson plan, and so on! Does that tell you anything? But through much trial and error I can finally say....I have finally found the perfect way to store my center activities. Problem solved! No more ziplocs! 

Don't get me wrong...I love ziplocs for everything, just not for my centers!!!

I was beyond excited for these to arrive a few days ago!

BEFORE.....

While this may look somewhat organized, it was a pain in the butt! Trying to keep task cards and little pieces in these open ended folders, or staple baggies to the inside, or much less trying to store required dice for an activity in these office folders.? It doesn't work very well! Believe me!

These zipper envelopes are just genius!!! They are 9x12, so they are perfect for storing full page centers and recording sheets. They easily and conveniently store small pieces as well as dice or counters that may be needed for each center! The clear pockets allow you to see what is in the pack or allow you to easily insert a cover page for each center! I just love them! Best investment ever!

Here are my centers now! All neatly tucked away in their own pocket! 

And while everything is always a work in progress for a teacher....now I'm looking at possible color coding as each package comes with 5 colors! The possibilities with these are endless...and there are SO many uses! While these are easy to flip through, you could also organize skills by color. For instance, all base ten activities could be blue, while all addition centers could be yellow. Holiday and seasonal themed centers could also be sorted by color.  

Personally, I try to stay away from too many seasonal/holiday themed centers for a few reasons. Through trial and error, I have learned that these skills are not usually what I need for my students at that time...and adjusting their centers for each holiday/season can cause a great deal of additional work for the teacher when you are working with multiple levels. 

I've already filled up 75 of these zippered envelopes....and just ordered 10 more packs! I don't want to chance them being discontinued as I accumulate more centers. They come 5 to a pack from "www.officesupply.com" and after searching the web, this is the best deal I have found!! You can check them out {here}, and shipping is free on orders that are $45 or more!  

SPRING BINS, TIE-DYE EGGS, & "BACK to TOP"

Hi guys! I'm a little late on my "Bloomin' Blogger Sundays" post because we've been in Vegas for two days. The Eagles concert was a-w-e-s-o-m-e!!!! We had such a great time! I keep thinking I'm back to work tomorrow, but wait.....I'm on spring break all next week! Yay! 

I got a little head start on my spring cleaning last week in my classroom. I don't know what it is about spring, but when it arrives, I really do seem to get that spring cleaning fever!!! Last week I decided to finally tackle cleaning out my file cabinets and organizing my materials by monthly themes. I have four file cabinets in my room and over half of these cabinets contained junk materials from before I even took over the classroom! Every day last week I loaded up my teachers rolling tote and brought home this:

Every night I ended up with a trash pile that looked like this:

And now......I have monthly themed bins that look like this:

Since I don't have a whole lot of stuff yet in just my 5 years of teaching, I organized mine using one bin for every 3 months and skipped June, July, and August. We get out of school the first week of June and start the last couple days of August, so I don't have a need for organizing a bin for those months. And they fit in the bottom of my cabinet perfectly. 

I forgot to take a photo of the inside....but inside I have folders for reading, writing, and math that are color-coded for that month. So in other words, each bin has three colors of folders in it. I love these bins because they fit and hang file folders perfectly (they're old Saxon math containers), so I put hanging folders inside where I placed the centers, books, stickers, etc. themed for each month.

I used sticker paper that I bought at Office Max to print my labels. 

You can get the labels for free at my "Teacher's Notebook" shop. 

Now I have one less file cabinet and three CLEAN file cabinets with space to fill with better and newer creations. 

And now for those of you in school next week and looking for an easy and fun Easter craft.....this is it! My class made these Friday and they turned out fabulous!

Tie-dyed Easter Eggs

1) I used my own egg pattern that I already had and printed on white construction paper. If you don't have a pattern, you could search google images for one or make a solid white one. It doesn't have to have any designs on it. 

2) Let the students choose 2-3 colors of food coloring & have them squeeze 5-6 drops of each color. 

3) Using a spray bottle of water, spray it. The colors will blend and give you the tie-dye look.

4) Hold up and let the excess water run off and lay on wax paper to dry. 

5) The picture doesn't show this, but I also punched a hole in the top of each one and looped a ribbon through it for hanging. 

You can also have your students draw designs or write on the egg first using a white crayon, which is what my student did on the egg on the right.

You can check out my EASTER Pinterest board, to see where I originally got this idea and for more Easter ideas!!

Okay, now for the reason I began this post in the first place.......oh, yea....."Bloomin' Blogger Sunday."  

Put the "Back to Top" arrow on your blog. 

You can try mine out now to see if you'd like to have it on your blog. Just click on the pink up arrow in the bottom right corner. I find it very useful on blogs I visit because rather than having to scroll all the way back up to the top of their blog to find something, I can simply click the arrow and I'm there!

Since this is already such a long post, I'm going to cheat a little and send you directly to where I learned how to do this on my blog. Plus, no need to always reinvent the wheel, right?? 

Click on the button and you will go directly to this tutorial. You will need to scroll down about 3/4's down to the Aug. 20th post. On your scroll down, you're most likely to find some other great tutorials of interest.   

As always, if you need any assistance or have suggestions for future tutorials or tips, please let me know! Happy Sunday!

FEBRUARY MONDAY MADE IT!

So excited to link up with Tara for Monday Made It again..........especially since it is only once a month now. I am getting so many fabulous ideas and goodies from all of you wonderful bloggers out there! It has truly been very inspiring! I have become obsessed with making things! 

Here are a few of the things I have been making.

First, I made these computer log on cards for my students. With all of our programs, the students log in with their name and their student #. The log on cards I had before were not working so well because the font was too small. They were also very flimsy and printed on regular paper. These are much larger and on laminated card stock. I spaced each number so that the students can follow each number easily when typing it in on the keypad.

1-10 Valentines Count & Match

These are heart die cuts from Carson Dellosa that I just happened to find when going through some of my junk last week. For the dots I used a hole puncher. I had a pic for you of the whole set, but accidentally deleted it........that's typical of me. Me & technology are not the best of friends!




I have one student that cannot seem to master her math facts no matter what I do! So I made these for her nightly homework practice......let's see if this works! Click {here} to grab these!

Magic Money Pictures Center Folders

I love these! What a fun idea from Karla @ "The Connected Teacher." As students count the money in each rectangle, they color in that amount on the mystery sheet to reveal a picture when they're done!
Karla uses them in sheet protectors, but as you can see, I made them into center folders. I used green folders from Office Max and laminated them. Students will color in the mystery picture with a dry erase marker. I have been using these for a couple of weeks and it has really motivated my students to learn money.

Winter Fun Count & Match

This is too cute! And came from Amy @ 3am Creations. She has some wonderful creations! I was able to get it free from Freebie Friday, but it is available at her TpT store for only $2.00. Go {here} to get it. Even though you're getting away from winter themes now, you can get it for next year! Students count the buttons & match to the correct number. Although I did not design these......there was some assembly required. Cut, fold, glue, & laminate to end up with your cute little matching cards. I then put them in coin envelopes like below for my centers. I prefer these over baggies and use them for everything that will fit and they come in many sizes!

A cute Valentine poem to give your students for a "No Homework Day!"

Last, I put together four more math centers!
If you haven't visited www.K-5mathteachingresources.com, you need to! This site is loaded with free hands-on math centers! I just print them on cardstock, laminate them, and place them in a folder with the required manipulatives in a baggie that I staple inside the folder.

Oh, I almost forgot to show you one other thing I made! My "BLOOMIN' BLOGGER SUNDAYS" button.




This is a weekly blog post where every Sunday I post a tip or how-to for new bloggers. Stop by and check it out! 

Well that concludes my Monday Made It. Can't wait to see what everyone else has been making!!