COLLECTING STUDENT WORK {Teacher Tip #16}

Classroom 360 is a complete tour of my classroom as designed for the 2012-2013 school year. Each post highlights an aspect of my room with photos, a detailed explanation of it's purpose, and often times videos.

This post is a Classroom 360, Teacher Tip and Flash Freebie all in one.

Talk about getting the most bang for your buck.

I didn't plan it that way, but when I was writing it up I realized I needed to tag it as both.

So without further ado I present to you my new and improved student work bins.

{Click here to access and download the labels shown in this picture as well as 8 additional labels.}

I actually used to just have one dishpan for collecting all student work. It sort of worked for me.

Sort of.

It wasn't all bad, but it did take some work to sort through the assignments because my friends finished work at different rates. I typically had kids sort it as an odd job when time allowed, BUT in the event that I wanted to correct something and my little worker bees were not around, it added extra time to the task.  

And we all know how crucial every moment is in our teacher lives.

So this year I decided to have designated spots for each subject area. This will be the one central area that all completed assignments get turned in. Because students will know this is the procedure in our classroom, they will be able to quickly turn in their work and move onto the next activity and not waste time standing around waiting to ask, "What do I do with this now that I'm done?"

In the past, I had made labels, laminated them and taped/glued/tied/hot glued them onto the bin.

And every.single.time the label managed to fall off.

Well, first it would fade and THEN it would fall off, but the end result was always the same.

It is for that reason that I decided to skip the lamination and get my Modge Podge on. You're actually going to be reading quite a few posts about my love of Modge Podge in the next couple of weeks. Consider yourself warned...and now go out and buy yourself a big ole jug of it (and a bunch of those cheapo foam brushes because they are the BEST for applying the MP).

I decided to use a different color bucket for each subject area. I plan to coordinate folders and whatnot to those colors as well.

I also made the executive decision to go with an ELA bucket as opposed to a reading bucket, a word study bucket, and a writing bucket. And since I alternate teaching a social studies unit and a science unit, I went and got all genius on myself by putting those two labels on opposite sides of the same bucket. I'll just rotate it around to reflect which subject we teach.

Because I wanted to use different color buckets AND because I wanted them to match my room, I decided to spray paint some dishpans I already had. This proved to be a great idea as I was able to then use the paint for some additional projects (which I'll be sharing soon).

Here's how it played out.

I have created a packet that includes all of the labels shown in the images above.  This product was designed as part of my versatile, ink-saving Blackline Design Collection.  

{Click here to access and download the labels shown in this picture as well as 8 additional labels.}

You may also be interested in my related posts:


Unfinished Work Boxes: How to Manage Students "Work in Progress"


The Must Do / May Do Board - How to Manage Student Assignments and Projects




For more tips and ideas on organizing and managing your classroom please check out my Clutter-Free Guide. This post is part of:

This item debuted as a Flash Freebie on 7.28.12 & was available from 5:58 a.m.-present {Eastern Standard Time}

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