Over the summer my teammates and I purchased some plastic magazine holders from the dollar bin at Target...they were $2.00 each, but still a good deal for brightly colored, durable containers. We pretty much wiped out the inventory at all our local Targets to each get a class set, but I am really glad we did because they are working out great for a few reasons.
1. They hold our iPads, headphones, AppCrayons, and morning work folders. That's a lot of stuff for each kid, so the bins or "buckets" as we can them really help each kiddo keep track of his/her stuff. We also have all of those items numbered in the event that they get separated from their specific bucket (which does happen in my room sometimes because we share those items with the PM class).
2. Never before have my kiddos been so accountable for completing their unfinished work. I love it! In the past, if they were late to school or just spent too much time chatting instead of coloring, their unfinished morning work simply went in their cubby and home at the end of the week. There was no follow through for completing it and a lot of work was messy. Same for unfinished math pages--they just went home and were never completed if a child was not able to complete the work during the actual math lesson. Now, however, all of those pages stay in the bucket until they are completed. And, students have to have all of their work completed BEFORE they can get their iPad in the morning, so there's a good incentive for keeping up with morning work. I love how in the morning I see kids taking out things they did not finish and getting those things done before getting their iPads. Work is neater, it's going home completed, and kids are learning about the importance of finishing their work.
When I had two classes in the past, I just couldn't wrap my mind around having folders for morning work because it seemed like way too much to juggle for two groups of students. I wasn't sure about the storage and the organization and that prevented me from trying it out. This year, with only one group, I decided to try it out and I am really happy with how it's working. Students get their buckets off the shelf in the morning when they come in and keep them at their tables all day until it's time to put iPads away and put the buckets back in their "parking space" (assigned spots so they know where to put it which makes clean up a bit easier). Sometimes the tables can get a bit crowded when the buckets are out, especially table groups with five kids, but we put them on the floor if we need more table space and overall it's a great system.
Target doesn't have the buckets anymore because it was part of their end of summer inventory, but I am pretty sure a store like Really Good Stuff would have something similar. We have always had little mailboxes where kids put their work that is ready to go home, but I'm glad they now have a holding place for projects and things they are still working on.
