2 Stars and a Wish

I am so excited to be linking up with my fabulous 2nd grade bloggy friends!  Even though I'm moving to third, 2nd will always have a big place in my heart.  Today we are bringing you a fabulous blog hop!

Our goal with this hop is to share 2 ideas to help you make a smooth transition back to school and 1 wish that we want to improve on.  

My first star idea really helped me stay organized this past school year.

Any bag can work for this, but the awesome organizational tool is the open file organizer inside!  This allowed me to put hanging files in it to keep all of my papers organized.  It worked like a charm and I will continue to use it this year.

The 2nd tip is also about organization.  Many teachers number their students alphabetically.  This number can be used for almost anything.  I also use these numbers to organize supplies.  Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of this, but I provide my students with most of their supplies (pencil box, crayons, pencils, pens), and I number each of them.  I just take Avery labels and cut them to about 1/2 an inch and number their supplies.  I do this so when kiddos are walking around doing work (we don't stay in one spot too long) and accidentally leave their materials behind, there is not confusion as to who it belongs to.  This saves a lot of time and a lot of things from magically ending up in someone else's desk!

The area that I want to improve on is assessment.  I have let a lot of my assessment data come from tests.  This year, I want to focus on building relationships with students and having that personal interaction to help in assessment.  To do this, I will be utilizing a conferring binder.  

I picked up this awesome binder from Target and I love it because it can bend backwards like a notebook!  

  

As a lefty, I have such a hard time writing in binders so I didn't want to have an excuse for not using my conferring binder.  I snagged some pocket dividers and numbered the tabs.  This way I can reuse them for years to come.  

I also made this set of conferring pages.  I've included a mix of pages to record each student's progress as well as labels to use during small group work.  My plan is to copy the same forms on colored paper for different subjects (math, reading, and writing)

 I will post about this binder in action once school is up and running!

If you enjoyed this bright idea, please consider following my blog, Facebook, and TPT store.  And for more star ideas from over 40 different bloggers, please check out the link-up below and choose a topic that interests you.  Thanks for visiting!

An InLinkz Link-up