Valentine's Day is Friday and it's always such a sweet and cheerful time of year.... and sugar-filled, but what can you do?
I like to celebrate Valentine's Day before, during, and after the event by including some of my Word Work and Writing activities in centers so that kids can be exposed to the fun all month long.
I wanted to show you a few ideas for storage and management in case you have my activities, or similar ones, to help keep you organized both while the kids are using the centers and after they are done.
Word Work Cards
All of my Word Work Centers come with 36 vocabulary terms on small cards. I love laminating these and having the kids use these in all of the centers. The problem? Especially if they are laminated, they are slippery and easy to lose under a desk, in a folder, in a book bin, and pretty much anywhere else!Short-term storage in our centers is easy with the snack-sized Ziploc baggies:
If there are multiple sets being used near each other, I will also code the sets with a colored dot sticker on the back of each card and one on the baggie to make clean-up a breeze!
Long-term, I have found that these cheap beauties from Target are a lifesaver:
They were on sale a while back for only $0.90 a piece-- perfect! Inside there are little dividers that are included, but I will also just rubber band the set of words together and then put them straight inside.
Since there were so many cute color options, I chose a different one for each month-- my Valentine's vocabulary words (along with Groundhog Day, President's Day, etc.) are now all in this:
I used my Silhouette Cameo to add the vinyl letters to the back to make it easy to find each year. Easy peasy!
Writing Centers
My most recent addition to my store is a twist on my popular Halloween Onomatopoeia Build-A-Story, but with a new language focus and holiday: Valentine's Day Idioms Build-A-Story! |
| Click to see this in my TpT Store. |
I have used these story cards in so many ways, most recently shrinking them down and having the kids glue them in their Writer's Notebooks to help them along the way.
A new idea, and one that will be easy to implement ASAP if you use D5: Work on Writing, Writing Groups: Independent Writing, or any type of writing center.
To make this folder, all I did was print off one copy of each page and laminate. I keep the anchor chart inside for easy reference, then cut out the cards and put each pile in its own binder ring. I take out the blank cards, except for the character one-- I add my name to that pile ;)
This folder is kept in our Writing Bin throughout the whole month and anyone who wants to use it can flip through the choices, choose 1-2 from each pile, and compose a Valentine's Day story with idioms in their Writer's Notebook. There's no copying for me, I can reuse the center year after year, and the kids love trying out different match-ups in their stories.
Plus, all I need to do when March rolls around is collect the February folder and put it in a safe spot until next year-- no disassembling or additional filing required (yahoo!!).
I hope this post gave you some gave you some good ideas for storing all of the materials we accumulate throughout the year! If you're like me, they usually end up in bins and/or piles, so these simple strategies were so helpful in getting and staying organized when the centers were being used and stored.
I hope you're enjoying the weekend and have a great week up ahead!
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