Flexible Seating Storage

When I fully embarked on the flexible seating journey last year, I wasn't sure where my students would store all of their stuff. Where will their books go, notebooks, and supplies? Was I going to do community supplies, individual supplies, or a mix of both? See what worked and didn't in our class as we tried our different flexible seating storage.

Flexible Seating Storage for Books

I had 4 towers (each tower held 6 drawers) of sterilite storage drawers spread throughout out room for students to store text books, interactive notebooks, classroom dictionary, and other materials. I bought the medium sized drawers but if I were to do it again, I'd get the large for a few extra bucks. Each drawer was labeled with a student number inside the Target adhesive labels.

Flexible Seating Storage Tips:

spread storage throughout the room so traffic doesn't pile up
go over your expectations
make sure that students have enough room for all of their things
Make it easily accessible. We had some by the front door, in the middle of our room, next to a wall, and near our library with the Ikea benches

Student Supplies

At first, I thought we'd be using community supplies because it's what I'd always done. But some of our seating options were smaller and it made leaving a caddy nearly impossible. So after a week, we ditched the community supplies and went to individual.

I had students bring in a fabric pencil pouch to keep pencils, scissors, glue sticks, expo markers, erasers, a highlighter, and a sharpie. The fabric pouches were easy to store and less bulky than the plastic ones. I made sure to buy extra pouches for friends who were unable to bring one in or broke theirs at some point.

When I fully embarked on the flexible seating journey last year, I wasn't sure where my students would store all of their stuff. Where will their books go, notebooks, and supplies? Was I going to do community supplies, individual supplies, or a mix of both? See what worked and didn't in our class as we tried our different flexible seating storage. — Image from Just a Primary Girl

https://www.facebook.com/EasyTeachingTools/videos/vl.913159088832437/1778786928842244/?type=1

Work Storage

Students always have some sort of unfinished work. Since we didn't have desks…and because I love this hack, students put their unfinished work on a clipboard. They kept their clipboard with them as they moved throughout the room. I've shared about this hack a few times here.

My name is Kristen and I’ve enjoyed teaching kindergarten, first grade, a 1/2 combo, and second grade. I’ve taught at both a low and high-performing Title I schools as well as a few fancy schools in California and O’ahu, Hawaii. I’ve earned my Master’s Degree in Education with an emphasis in reading in addition to my Reading Specialist Certificate. When I am not teaching my scholars or other educators at Professional Development classes, I enjoy creating materials to share with my colleagues, organizing family literacy events, and giving workshops on ways to make Literacy Workshop effective and engaging.

2 Responses

K. Terry says:

April 28, 2019 at 7:27 pm

I love your guided reading table and the Ikea benches! Can you please tell me where the guided reading table is from? I have never seen that particular shape and would LOVE to get one!

Reply
1. Kristen says:
  
  April 28, 2019 at 8:56 pm
  
  Thanks! I’m not seeing a guided reading table in this post. Can you elaborate? The one I typically share was district property but if you’re talking about the one in another post that’s shaped like “U” was put together by welding two tables.
  
  Reply