Bright Ideas: Use plastic dividers to display student work

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook then you have seen several of my back-to-school posts. You heard me correctly...back...to...school. This week was back to work for teachers and on Monday I get to meet my new class (well, the few that didn't make it to Meet the Teacher). I'm so excited for this school year!

I wanted to share a little Bright Idea. This is something I totally stole from another teacher my first year of teaching, I've used it ever since (and this will be year 12 for me!). I'm so not the type of teacher that is in to making super cute bulletin boards and changing them out during the year. I am low maintenance - I typically leave most of my same bulletin boards up for several years at a time before I feel the need to change them.

This is my current student work bulletin board...

These pocket dividers are colorful yet transparent and make a super easy way to display student work. As an added bonus, it is sooooo easy to change it up throughout the school year without doing a major overhaul (you should of seen me just trying to put up a piece of butcher paper on the wall...hilarious!). They are also super cheap and very durable. Most of the ones I have are from my first year of teaching (well, not these, because I wanted different colors this year).

Just cut off the divider tabs and attach them to the wall (I just staple the top). Throughout the year students can slip in their amazing work. I mostly use them for student writing, and I have them leave their work in them all year so at the end of the year - BAM - writing portfolio!

The nametags are simply laminated and hot glued on (they peel off super easy when you want to change them). I use a Vis-a-Vis marker so that I can easily change the names for the following year.

For those of you that use GoNoodle, you'll notice a theme here. All of the tags are free from GoNoodle! My previous theme was popcorn. You can get an idea of what it looked like before...

I hope you found my Bright Idea useful and that you have an WONDERFUL back-to-school, whenever it may be for you. For more bright ideas from other bloggers, please browse through the link-up below and choose a topic/grade level that interests you. Thanks for visiting!

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Bright Idea - Nearly Painless Filing and Returning Student Work

My blog reader is full of amazing teacher blogs and my favorite entries have always been the Bright Ideas posts. So, I am super excited to finally link up with all these creative bloggers and their awesome ideas.

When I started teaching (11 years ago!) I didn't have a system for returning student work. Ok, I did have a system, but it wasn't the best system. I would hold on to graded work until I had a few ready to hand out and then divide them up and have the kids pass them out to each other. While this might be a quick way to accomplish this task it left me with some concerns: 1. I was wasting valuable instruction time, 2. students could see the grades of their classmates, and 3. who knows if mom/dad would ever see it!

A couple years after that I changed schools and grade levels. My new team members would staple all graded work to the weekly newsletter which then had to be signed by parents and returned the following week. This ensured that (most) parents were now seeing weekly assignments and grades. Genius! So the next year or two I remember Thursday nights, sitting on my living room floor with a pile or papers. Step one was to alphabetize them and step two was to lay them all out and begin to grab from each pile. Madness! This was the part of the week that I absolutely loathed.

Finally, I realized two important things needed to happen. First, that my students needed numbers to help me organize their work more quickly. They are assigned a number at the beginning of the year and write it next to their name on all assignments. Next, I invested in a cheap crate and some hanging folders. I labeled each one with the student numbers. Another plus is that I can use these over and over again because it doesn't have student names on it!

The front purple folder isn't numbered. All work that has been graded goes straight in there to be filed later by a helper or myself. Note: The "W" after the number was when I taught 6th grade and our students went to multiple teachers. Students in my homeroom put a "W" after their number while students from my teammates homeroom put a "D" after their number. This is a great way to file for those that platoon/departmentalize!

Here are some spelling tests awaiting filing. When it is time to file them it is easy to locate the student number on the paper and quickly place it in that numbered folder! I've never timed myself, but I think I can file each assignment in about a minute or two.

Other important papers (book orders, flyers, permission slips) often go in as well. Ahhh...nice and organized!

Fridays run so smoothly now! I grab all that papers out of each folder, staple them to the newsletter, and they are ready to go home! No more bringing them home on a Thursday night!

If you have enjoyed this bright idea consider following me on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram! For more bright ideas from other bloggers, please browse through the link-up below. Thanks for visiting!

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