Here in South Carolina we start school on August 17th so I am working like mad to get everything set up in the classroom (teachers go back on Monday). I found these bins doing a walkthrough at Wal-Mart in their campus supply section and liked that could easily fit 25 notebooks with room to spare. The bins I used last year were too small and it became problematic. I am teaching three fourth grade science classes this year so I purchased three different colored bins to separate the notebooks. These bins would not fit on a traditional bookshelf but they do fit on a counter top or table. I have an ELA group and am going to try my hand at reading notebooks this year. I'll post some periodic updates :)
I use mailing labels placed in the upper right hand side of the book to put names so I can, and the students can, find their book quickly (see third orange bin).
For management I set my students up in groups of four and each table is labeled (wide blue painters tape) 1 through 4. On my job board I have a "table runner" position that I rotate every Monday. That table runner is then responsible for getting books from the bin, passing out papers, returning books to the bin, etc. It worked well last year and most of the time the books were grouped according to tables so it was easy for a runner to come up and grab their four or five books and pass them out.
Comments
Your blog has helped the others get comfortable doing interative notebooks.
Kimberly