Thursday, October 2, 2014

Tricks and Treats Blog Hop

Our first Blog Hop!!! We are so excited to have this opportunity to link up with awesome bloggers from all over to share some helpful tricks and some sweet treats.

First a trick because all teachers LOVE a good trick. Whether it is to help you support your kiddos with a tough concept like writing a solid constructed response, following the steps of the Scientific Method, or mastering those pesky multiplication facts (UGH! THOSE ARE THE WORST!!!), or a trick to get you organized so you can stay afloat with a mile long to-do list and piles of paper work and assignments to grade, teachers are all ears. 


Each summer we try to have as many copies ready to go before the school year starts as possible (yes, we are nutty but at least we own it!!!) so we often run into the problem of how to organize those papers and where to store them. A little over a year ago we ran into these little gold mines,




They seemed like a perfect fit for our little problem. So we purchased as much as we could with what we had left in our budget and started organizing units into each individual bin. Some units fit two in a bin, while others (with more copies) are able to fit one unit per bin. 



As much as we enjoy our jobs and our classrooms, we were growing kinda tired of coming in all summer and hovering over the copy machine with our gazillion copies that need to be made so we came up with another plan. We often have parents who volunteer to come in and help us out. We realized with some of our units we could have parents "refill" the bins with copies we know we need for the following year. Obviously we don't always know what the needs of our students will be and some units we are not able to prepare that much in advance, however, some such as our Math in Focus units are easy to prepare in advance. Below is an image of the checklist we have in the front of each of our bins to help us prepare the bin for the following year.



We are also able to prepare all of our word study copies for the year. (If you are looking for a year-long word study plan that focuses on prefixes, suffixes, and root words, check out our bundle below!)



The best part? We are able to store our bins in our cupboards and only pull out the bins we need! It helps to keep things organized and clutter free!




Now for a treat! Please enjoy 20% off everything in our TPT store today, Friday, October 3rd and Saturday, October 4th. Whether you are looking for math word wall sets, word study materials, activities to practice fractions and line plots, or meaningful math homework, check out the great deals at our TPT store!


Thank you for stopping by and please take some time to hop through to find more fabulous tricks and treats!


11 comments:

  1. I love how organized you guys are!
    Thanks for the post,
    Lori

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    Replies
    1. We feel like we are always going 100 mph once the school year starts so we need to make the best use of our time! We have loved our bins! Thank you!!

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  2. Those containers are a-ma-zing! I love how organized and prepared you are! Wouldn't it be nice if you could know the needs of all your incoming students and have everything prepped this way :) Thanks for sharing!

    Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten

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    Replies
    1. It would be nice to know the needs of our kiddos ahead of time but of course their needs are always changing so it is just not possible. We have found that we are bound to certain assessments because they determine students progress toward our standards so we are able to prepare those ahead of time even when we are not sure what the rest of the unit will look like. This organization system has saved us so much time! Thank you!

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  3. Wow! I have binders and binders full of supplemental resources yet I never thought to get ahead on copying for the following year. I'm glad I'm not the only one nutty for organizing. Thanks for sharing.
    http://www.anchoredinlearning.blogspot.com/

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    Replies
    1. We like binders too! This has given us a place to store our originals for each unit AND the copies for kids which has been great! Thank you!!

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  4. I am your newest follower! I just love your blog! I found you in the TPT seller forum. I'm so happy I did! Your blog is amazing!

    http://primary-essentials.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hello!

    I nominated you for the Liebster New Blog award. Here's a link to my post where you can learn how to accept!

    http://everythingjustso.org/homeformatrss/2014/10/13/an-award

    Thanks!

    Jennifer
    everythingjustso.org

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  6. Great post! I've enjoyed reading your blog!

    I've nominated you for the Liebster award (although I just saw you were already nominated... more than 1 nomination is always a good thing!!)

    TheScooponPrimary

    Katie

    ReplyDelete