Tried It Tuesday {Book Bins Holding Up?}

What have you tried lately?  Link up any ideas you have tried, old or new, and share what worked for you!  I learn so much from all of the creative link ups!

My Tried It:

Book Bins 
This is a pretty simple "Tried It" and I know so many teachers have used bins to hold their books for a long time.  However, this is the first year that I have tried them and was a little apprehensive about how they would work. :)  You can read more about the work I did this summer to my library here.

I thought I would revisit this topic after the bins have been in use for a good 15 weeks.  So far, I really  LOVE having book bins!  I thought that the books might get unorganized and end up in the wrong bins, but they have stayed surprisingly organized!  I have a librarian job that changes every two weeks.  The librarian helps put back books that were returned to the "book return" bin.  The books are also labeled on the inside cover with an Avery label indicating the name of their book bin.

I attached my owl book bin labels using shipping/packaging tape and that has held up great except on these small "holey" bins (all my bins are from the Dollar Tree).  I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but the dust collected on the tape through the little holes and the labels started falling off! I am a tad anal and it was very annoying.

My solution?  I went back to the Dollar Tree and bought these replacement bins (no holes!).  I'm just glad I could find some that they had in stock that matched my other bins and were small enough for this shelf.  Now, there are no holes and the labels should stay put!

I was also worried that the bins would end up in a disarray on the shelves.  I snapped these photos yesterday without straightening the bins on the shelves and they look passable by my standards!  I talk to the students about putting the book bins back neatly and they have listened for the most part. :)  

These bins pictured below are a little easier to keep in line on the shelves since there is not as much extra room for movement.  The bins themselves have held up well (they were only $1 each).  If you look closely at the picture below, the last red bin (closest to the window) has duct tape on the handle.  This actually broke when another teacher grabbed the book bin, so there are no book bins damaged by students yet! :)

The black paint has also held up very well with the clear coat I put on top of the shelves. Again, see this post here for more about that.  The only bookcase that has given me problems with the paint is the tall one in the corner.  That bookcase had the veneer coating all over and there was no real wood.  The other bookcases were higher quality and real wood that I primed first, painted, and then applied the clear coat of varnish on the shelves.  I don't think I could ever go back to not having book bins again!

I also wanted to share these Command Hooks that I have used for two years now on my mantle in case anyone else is looking for a solution to hang stockings.  They really work well and are barely visible.  They remove without leaving any marks on our century old mantle!

 I love Christmas!!  

Five for Friday {October 18, 2013}

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday to share some highlights of my week.  We had Monday off from school but those shortest weeks always seem the longest!

 I am slowly getting into the groove of organizing three blocks of ELA classes.  We are departmentalized this year and I teach three 80 minute blocks of ELA.  I finally cleared out this organizer to make room for each block to have its own shelf.  In the folders are papers for each block (they are packed full of grading to do this weekend...ugh!) and I have a clipboard for conferencing with individual students during each block's Daily 4 rotations.

This week we finally started Daily 5 (4) centers with students at different stations.  The first five weeks of school were spent training Read to Self, Read to Someone, Work on Writing, and Word Work as a whole class.  Those weeks flew by and it is always a breath of fresh air when I can let the students work freely on different tasks and I can begin individual conferences on a regular basis.  The students did an amazing job!!!  A reading specialist pushes in for 30 minutes of each block and I save that time for rotations to allow for more individualized conferencing and instruction.  Here is what my calendar looks like on the front of Block One's clipboard.  There are two columns for two different teachers conferencing.

Right now, I am keeping these D5 sheets (copied front and back) under the calendars on the clipboard.  I am placing the sheets that my reading specialist will need for her conferences that day on her clipboard.  She has one clipboard that she uses throughout the day.  We can easily see the notes from the teacher that met with the student last time.  Last year I had a binder with a section for each student but it was too cumbersome to carry around.  I like carrying around the clipboard and the ease of finding the sheet for each student by placing the students who I intend on conferencing with that day at the top of the pile.

 For now, the students are assigned to their center topic but have their choice of the activity at Word Work and Work on Writing.  When I put this up today on my SMART board, the students were SO excited to see their center assignment.  One girl was doing a little dance at her seat and said in the sweetest voice, "I am so excited that I get to read to self today!"  It just gives me the warm fuzzies. :)

I use this simple tracking sheet for students to write down their Word Work and Work on Writing tasks.   They also record a little note if they need to go back and finish it later.  

You can download it here as a freebie! 

We are starting our poetry unit next week and reading Love That Dog by Sharon Creech.  The students started making predictions about the book.  Each student made their own prediction and then the groups placed their post it notes on one group handout.  The groups discussed their predictions.  The handout is from this pack that I purchased during last weekend's TPT sales.

My daughter was so proud to earn her yellow stripe belt at karate last night!  It was a surprise and she was SO excited.  I am in the same class as a combo class for adults and children about 5 and up.  She was presented the belt at the end of class in front of everyone and it was so neat to witness it in class!

I love this time of the year and we have had gorgeous weather the past few weeks in NY (knock on wood!).  Here is a picture of a little hike we went on last weekend with the kiddos.  I am probably my most relaxed in the woods and this is definitely one of my favorite ways to spend time.  

The stillness, smell, and beauty just captures me every time!

Happy weekend everyone!! 

Tried It Tuesday {Student Groups and Supplies}

This is how I started Tried It Tuesday last week:  As I am writing this week's Tried It Tuesday on Monday night, my voice is just about gone after fighting this cold and a day of teaching.  I wonder what tomorrow will bring!  Update:  My voice is STILL not back to normal.  This is a huge bummer when I am in the car alone and want to sing along to my favorite songs and it comes out as a squeak! Haha!!  I think I am definitely on the upswing though and didn't have to get an antibiotic.  Let's hope I'm right! :)
We had off for Columbus Day today (yay!) so I sat down at 9:30 tonight and realized that I forgot about Tried It Tuesday!  Oops...

My Tried It:

Student Groups and Supplies
I didn't have my Tried It planned ahead but, when I started thinking about what I have "tried", what came to mind immediately was how I have tried arranging my students' desks in groups of four or five this year.  Since we are departmentalized this year, each of my three ELA blocks sit in groups.  I have used this seating arrangement before, but not very often.   I think I got in a funk with the "U" arrangement (with some desks in pairs or trios in the middle) and I also used pairs and trios of desks in recent years more often.  The SMART board is used daily in my classroom and I was worried that some students would have their back to the board.  My solution was to arrange the room like with the desks in the front angled slightly.

We have been in school for five or six weeks now (who's counting?) and I am absolutely LOVING this arrangement!  So far, no one (out of all three classes) has complained about not being able to see the SMART board.  Students always have a partner to share with when we are at our desks.  If there is someone absent in a group of four, the group easily becomes a group of three!  The students do not talk anymore than they would have in another arrangement.  Of course there are behaviors that I have had to correct but the students would have probably tried to exhibit those behaviors no matter how I arranged the desks! :)

Here are some students working in groups and showing off their new pen pal letters! :)  We are pen pals with Gary from Scrappy Guy Designs and Jivey from Ideas by Jivey!

 
Only my homeroom (Block 1) actually has supplies in their desks, so I started using a basket for each group with bottle of glue, scissors, and post-its to use when working on our interactive journals.  I have noticed that so many teachers use communal supplies and I am not ready to go there yet (I would want my team to be on board and let parents know in the school supply list sent home over the summer) BUT I love having a group basket for the glue, scissors, and post its.  Students keep highlighters, pencils, and other handy tools in their personal pencil slider cases (thank you Joanne from Head Over Heels for Teaching!).  These are kept in their individual book boxes.
You can see a student's slider case on their desk in the picture below.

See the red arrow in the picture above?  Those are currently my supply baskets that I took from my "extra baskets" in storage.  They are not working very well because the scissors stick out of the holes sometimes and the glue bottles don't stand up.  This can be a problem when students don't follow directions and close the bottle properly.  I FINALLY ordered some new baskets this weekend from amazon.  It only took me five weeks!  Ugh.  I hope the glue bottles stand up well!

Sorry that this is not a very enlightening post but maybe it can help another teacher who is struggling with a new seating arrangement or using group supplies! :)

Tried It Tuesday {book bins and painted bookcases}

Happy Tuesday!!  It is Welcome Back to School for me.  Of course, I am writing this on Monday night at 11 p.m. and am still wide awake.  Trying to switch back to a normal bedtime always makes for a great week back.  We have Open House on Wednesday night but at least we only have students on Thursday and Friday.
Since, we aren't officially back yet, I racked my brain thinking about what I could show you that I've "tried" this week.  I finally decided to share with you how I tried transforming my classroom library!

My Tried It:

Book Bins and Painting Bookcases
When I taught 6th grade, I was teaching social studies for a few years and then math for five.  Having a large classroom library was not a top priority.  Then, five years ago I switched to fourth grade and slowly started collecting books through yard sales, ebay, and donations.  My library has grown every year and this summer I decided that I really wanted to transform it by organizing my books in bins.

There are so many amazing classroom libraries all over the internet.  I have drooled over them, especially this library from Beth Newingham's Scholastic blog post from way back in 2009!  I just love those bookcases and baskets.  The bookcases line up so neatly and you can tell they are great quality.

In addition to not having as many books as I would like, one of my other problems is that I don't have  amazing sturdy bookcases that line up nice and neat in my room.  

Last summer I bought a cheap bookcase for more storage from WalMart ($15) and it broke by the end of the year.

This summer, I found two bookcases at local yard sales and they were both very sturdy.  One was $5 and the other was $7.  However, they were different colors and mismatched, so I knew I would have to paint them.  I decided to go with black because I found some bright bins at the Dollar Tree (for $1 each of course) that would just "pop" against the black.

I got to work priming the bookcases.

These mini foam rollers really do a nice job making the work a little easier.

Next, I used an acrylic black gloss paint.

Then, I went to work in my room painting two other bookcases.  A friend gave me the tall bookcase.  This one is not as sturdy as the other three but it makes a good corner piece.  The other bookcase is school grade quality and super sturdy.

There was one shelf that was not removable in the tall bookcase.  The others were removed and painted on a flat surface using the same foam mini roller.

I am not even sure how many hours I spent painting these four bookcases, but it was many!  Each bookcase took THREE coats of the black paint!  Painting the little nooks and crannies in the "ABCD" bookcase was a complete pain too.  However, they looked awesome when I was done.  So, you can just imagine how disappointed I was when I placed these book bins on the shelves and they scratched the paint and were like sticking to the paint!  The original two bookcases had been drying for like a month and the other two were only drying for two days.  But still!!!  What was I going to do?

My first solution was to spray this Mod Podge adhesive on the shelves to "protect" them from scratches.

It covered the shelves okay but I couldn't spray many coats because it was the stinkiest, toxic stuff on the planet and unless I wanted to haul all the bookcases outside, I wasn't going to be spraying that anymore!  Next, I tried my trusty varnish from my mod podge projects.  I brushed it on the top of each shelf with a foam disposable brush.

I let it dry a few days, went back to school and loaded the bins back on the shelves.  

The varnish has seemed to work and the bins don't "stick" anymore.  I am nervous about how it will hold up to student usage though.  Those fourth graders can sure be tough on furniture and I will have all fifty 4th graders using my library this year since we are departmentalizing.

I already LOVE that the library is organized in bins now.  We are going to do some genre activities at the beginning of the year and explore using our classroom library.  I will have the students help place sticker labels inside each book that names the bin they belong in.  Each group would only have to place stickers in the books of one or two bins and that job will be done. :)  My books already had color coded labels on the binding (sealed with shipping tape) according to their AR (Accelerated Reading) level.

Have you tried painting bookcases?  How did they hold up to the wear and tear?  I would be grateful if you have any tips for me because I might be repainting/sealing next summer!