By Shannon at the Southern Schoolhouse
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In all aspects of teaching, it is important to have organization and be ready for each transition. When I moved from the regular classroom to the EC resource position, I found that my organization had to look different. In this article, I am going to share how I organize my materials for the many transitions I have throughout my day. I know not every technique works for everyone and even after six years, it is still a work in progress.
I have twelve transitions throughout my day (this does not include lunch and prep time) and three take place in Joy’s room when we are team teaching. In order to be prepared for each of the groups, I had to find a system that worked for me. I start my day in Joy’s room and work with four different groups within our morning rotation. For each group, I have a plastic container with activities related to IEP goals, as well as any manipulatives needed. My containers are stackable so it is easy for storage and doesn’t take up a lot of space. The containers shown in this link have lids which are great so that nothing falls out and gets lost, but mine do not, because I used what was provided through my school.
In my room, I have three more containers set up and laid out in order on my counter. One is for my 5th grade math group and two other ones for students I see individually. I update the containers as needed. When I feel it is time to move on to a new skill or I need a different activity because the one I am using isn’t working for that student or group, they are updated. I also update them for the season (mostly for my K-1 students). A few years ago, I started collecting activities that I could just grab and add to my containers when needed.
Joy has a similar system. This makes it easier when I go into her room later in the day, to grab the materials needed from her containers for our two older reading groups. We have learned that too much wait time for the students before starting the lesson can affect the learning for that day. As soon as they walk in, we greet, check in with them and get started right away. We really try to reinforce the same routines and procedures everyday, so there are no surprises. We feel it is important to utilize every minute of their daily resource time.
These boxes are one technique I use to organize my materials for the day in order to optimize learning and make transitions easier for everyone. Please share other ways you organize your materials. We are always looking for new ideas.
