Cute Crates!

I am almost finished my classroom - got all of my stuff out of storage yesterday and arranged most of it. I will be posting pictures soon, I think that if I go in for a full day today I should be ready to go!

While visiting a friend's classroom and talking about journals and the increased emphasis on writing in the Core Curriculum, she shared with me that the smaller crates at Walmart are perfect for holding composition notebooks and regular spiral notebooks! I headed to Walmart and purchased two right away. When I got them home I found that they fit about 25 composition notebooks with enough room left for little hands to still be able to reach in and pull them out and it should be easy enough for them to put them back in as well. Last year I kept my journals in plastic file holders that were labeled with each individual table color, they looked like this:

Although it was easier for children to find their own journal that way, it did take up more space having 5 of those bad boys on the counter, plus they were constantly getting knocked over! I'm thinking the crates will be more stable, plus I usually hand them out anyways, so really having them divided by table isn't a big deal for me. I did jazz them up with a little bit of ribbon (just used a glue gun). I think they turned out super cute!

Also, remember to enter my 2 month bloagaversary giveaway!