Organizing Classroom Manipulatives

One of my "Back to School" projects this year has been to organize all of our containers of plastic manipulatives at school.  Up until now we had a huge shelf of containers with no labels, which made it quite hard for anyone to put things away.  Plus, I knew that it's best for the kids to have things labeled, and that was one area that we scored low on the ECERS last spring (Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale).  Those factors combined with the fact that I in general am prone to label anything that will sit still long enough made this a fun and useful classroom job.

My first step was to measure the container that the label was to go on.  We actually have a variety of containers that hold our manipulatives, but since they're all about the same size, I could pick one size to fit all.

I then made the labels in Publisher and typed in the name of each object.  While doing this I quickly found that it was kind of hard to find a name for all of the odd building toys that we have in our room.  Even a virtual stroll through several online catalogs left me lacking on some names.  So, I basically just made them up according to what the objects looked like.  I figured that the most important thing was to have the actual object on the label.  Once that was there, it didn't matter if one type of manipulative was called "Connecting People" or "Linking People" or "Plastic People".

I then cut and laminated the labels and attached the objects.  My first thought was that I would poke two holes through the label and use a tiny zip tie to tether the object to the label.  However, this proved quite tricky, and in fact was quite daunting to the teenagers who were helping me with the job.  I considered hot glue, but in the past have found that hot glue will peel right off of lamination.

Finally, I decided on glue dots.  If you haven't used these before, they are wonderful.  They're not for everything of course, but in situations where you want to stick two things together without mess, they're perfect.  They are especially nice to use with three-dimensional objects.  I used them not only to stick the objects to the labels, but also to stick the labels to the basket.  

Now, there are a few places that I will use the pictures of the objects instead of the real things. These are in cases where the real objects are too big to stick on.  Or in my containers that are right beside the carpet where the kids sit.  I figured it might be way too tempting pull of a matchbox car that it right at eye-level beside you while sitting during story time.

Regardless, I love how these labels are working, and how it will allow teachers (and kids) to find and put away objects more easily.

Day #4 of "The Keeping of the Stuff" - Using a Camera to Stay Organized

Well, here I am (finally) to talk about another way to help keep your Teaching Stuff organized. So far I've talked about my Theme Unit Numbering System and my unit boxes.  However,  even with all that stuff fairly organized, there are other items that I have that I find troublesome to keep together.   Even worse, sometimes I find that even if I can keep them together, I sometimes go months before realizing that I'm not really utilizing any of them because they are "out of sight, out of mind".  Basically I forget that I even have them.

Because I think that it's a shame to have so many good resources and not utilize them, I have learned to use my digital camera to keep these teaching items more "in sight" and thus in better use.  Whether it be my actually "real" camera or the camera on my phone, I find that this can be an excellent tool to help a)organize my things, and b)utilize them the best way.

The primary way I use my camera is to help keep track of items that I have.  For example, I have several large clear plastic containers of general-themed teaching items.  One is filled with games and activities that deal with "Numbers and Counting", one is "Shapes and Colors", and one is "Alphabet".  Since these are things that can not really be filed in the number filing system, they live in their own container in the garage, and sometimes are forgotten.  Therefore, this summer I took pictures off all of these items.  Here are a few examples:

I then can paste these pictures onto a document using any word processing software and print it out:

I then file them in my planning notebook that I refer to when I am making lesson plans (more about that on another day).

If I have an item that I want to go with a specific unit or in a lesson plan, I can paste that picture directly into the lesson plan where it would be used, since I plan my lesson plans on my computer.  I can also insert the pictures into a document that I call "Items Available for (insert theme here)."  This is what I do most often with my big books.  Although I have a list of them in database that I can search by theme or unit number, sometimes I don't remember the actual book until I see the cover.  (This is especially true for preschool books, when you might have three or four books titled "Bugs", or "Apples".) Therefore, I will paste the pictures onto a page like this:

This is especially helpful if you have a big book with different charts or themes on each page.  For example, on the page above you can see an "Insects" poster on the bottom left corner.  This is one page of a book that has a different theme on each page, and I always forget I have it because a)it lives in the garage in a big container and b)it doesn't get filed in the "053/Insect section".  To solve this, I took a picture of each page of the book (it has about ten pages) and inserted each picture on a document listing materials with that theme.   If I needed to, I could type in that this chart was in such-and-such book to help me remember where it is.

By using my camera in this way, it helps me keep my teaching objects close to mind and well-utilized.

Organizing Teacher Materials

 I had a mini "changing of the guard" this afternoon in the garage as I switched out some of my already-used unit boxes for some of the ones coming up in the next few weeks.

I only have one large shelf unit (in the garage) where I keep my most used items, which means the unit boxes that a)are coming up soon or b)are just finished (because I inevitably find bits and pieces of unit materials for awhile after I finish a unit).  The rest of my boxes I keep in a loft storage space in the garage, so I have to rotate them from time to time.

I also keep a box in the garage labeled "Things to File in Teachers Boxes" for those times I find something (or purchase something) that belongs in a unit box up in the garage storage area so I don't have to keep going up to those boxes.  When the "Things to File" box gets full, it's time to go to the off-season boxes and put everything away.

Today I sent up Valentine's Day and Winter and Community Helpers.  I had to add another Valentine's box since for some reason I had more things than I did when I first pulled the boxes down a few months ago. (Strange how that happens...)

 Down came Bunnies and Baskets and Signs of Spring and Pets and Farms.

I really do enjoy my Theme Box labels.  These shown here in the picture are my old ones, before I got all my fun new digital clip art.  I have since made all new ones that I put up for sale in my Teachers Notebook and TeachersPayTeachers stores.   They help me keep all like items together, and even when that fails, they  they look good as I pull the car out of the garage every day...

Here are a few of the new Theme Box Labels:

You can purchase them here and here, at only $2.00 for the set.