Monday, September 28, 2015

5 Tips For Organizing Your Classroom With Washi Tape

Hi everyone! Happy Fall to all of you! It's me, Alisha, from Missing Tooth Grins to chat with you today. I have recently fell in a deep, deep love with washi tape. I've always been quite fond of it and I'm sure you have too! I am here to share some easy, quick tips with you on what I did in my classroom to help organize myself better with just washi tape!



What's so great about washi tape anyway?

My favorite part about washi tape is that you can take it off and it doesn't do anything to what it was on! It is a clean rip. No tears, no rips, nothing. Nada. Plus, you can write on washi tape. If I wanted to use normal labels or stickers, sure I could write on them, but I wouldn't be able to remove them very easily.

1. Organize Your Filing Cabinet

My filing cabinet is behind my guided reading table. I actually have two filing cabinets in my new school and I'm used to only having one. Plus, I have a ton or cabinets and drawers and closet space that I'm not used to having... So therefore, one of my filing cabinets was completely empty! What a blessing, right? So, it turned into my area where I keep all the small group materials I need. I kept opening up the wrong drawer during the wrong time though. Seriously, every day I would open the math drawer during reading and the reading drawer during math. It was so annoying. My kids just laughed because it was every.single.day. Anyway, enter washi tape!

2. Labeling Folders


In most my center folders, there's a "Must Do" activity and a "Might Do" activity. The "Must Do" is what they must do (weird, right?) and the "Might Do" is what they might do if they finish early. Not all my babies can read the Must Do and Might Do, so I color-coded it with washi tape. They know that whichever pocket has the washi tape is the pocket they must do. The one without the washi tape is what they might do. I know some of you are wondering why I didn't just tell them the left or right and that's because not all first graders can remember their left and right and also... I don't want to repeat that every day while I'm in small group.

3. Reusing Manila Folders



As you can see, this folder has been used... But, I can use it again and again and again if I want to if I just use washi tape. Like I said earlier, it doesn't tear so might as well make it so you can reuse stuff and not have to keep buying certain things!

4. Labeling Your Supplies



There's nothing I hate more than when people walk away with my supplies. I've finally learned my lesson with my flair pens and have flagged them with washi tape so no one walks away with them! I even do this at home :) I have washi tape on my scissors, pens, sharpies, etc.

5. Creating Binder Clip Labels


I can always label my binder clips for whatever I need! I love how I can switch it out too. Labeling my binder clips helps so much when I'm trying to find something that I really, really need. You can use binder clips for so many things.

And that's all! I hope these tips were useful for you! What do you like to use washi tape for?

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