10 Ways Numbers Make Life Easier!

It's all about numbers!!

No...

Not data numbers. lol

These numbers are the numbers I give students each year.

They get a number that corresponds to them in order.

This makes my life SOOOOOO much easier in SOOOOOO many ways.

Numbers are great because I can reuse things year to year - and WHEN (not IF, but WHEN because our school has a revolving door!) students leave, and new students come, I can just place those students into empty numbers. (yes, sometimes that means they'll be out of ABC order, but it STILL is so much easier)

Let me show you a few ways.....

#1

Turning in work.

This is the little gem of a system that I have used in grades 2-5 and it works PERFECTLY!!! I'm sure it'll work great with 1st grade too. :)

When students are finished with their work, they "file" it. That means they walk over to this.....

and put their work in their folder. Each folder has a number and then I laminated them and put them in this dish rack! That way, all the papers are already in alphabetical order. So when I take them out, they are in ABC order, backwards (Z on top), so as I grade them, I put them to the side and then they are back in regular ABC order - so it's a cinch when putting them in the grade book!! AND I can quickly flip through the files to see if anyone is missing any work.
(it's not very pretty....I've these this files for like 10 years. They last forever! and all of my extra folders that I don't need are under the dish rack so the kids don't need to fumble through them to get to their folders)

#2

Picking centers

Below is a picture of how my student pick centers. They use their "clip" to pick a center - each clip has a number. 

#3

Displaying Work

I have REALLY small boards....so I divided my two boards up using numbers up 1-9, and 10-18.

#4

Missing Assignments

I write the assignment on the board (Cat, Super Sentence, etc) and underneath, I write the numbers of people who need to turn it in. I also use it to record who borrowed one of my books overnight. 

#5

Mailboxes

Their graded work goes in these mailboxes and instead of writing new names every year, I use numbers and I am set year to year.

 

The tabs aren't pretty anymore, but I've had the same ones on there for about TEN years! haha!

#6

Job Chart

See how much less space it takes up using numbers?? And again, I can use it year to year!

#7

One of my favorite usage of numbers....

Library Sticks.

This is how they borrow my books. They have stick (painter stick) with their number, and whereever they take the book, that is where their stick goes. That way, they know exactly where to put it back. Is it a full-proof system? No, but neither is checking them out through the library! lol

 #8

A.R. Points Board

Each Friday, I move their littler person up the A.R. board.

#9

Numbers on pencils.

 I actually started doing this after seeing Kristen's post on it (Ladybug Teacher Files - she's BRILLIANT!). and let me tell you....there is NO MORE "whose pencil is this lying on the floor?", "I lost my pencil!" "she/he had my pencil!"  I give them 2 pencils every interim and report card. And I also have a stash with an "R" on it, so that they know it's my pencil and needs to return to my cup of pencils.

#10

My actual numero uno thing for numbers is my "sticks." This is how I randomly call on people. You can see they aren't the cleanest prettiest, but that's because I've had the SAME sticks for the last TEN years! ha! You'll notice the sticks that are rubberbanded to the outside of the cup...those are numbers that I don't have students for, but I keep them anyway, just in case I get new students.

I hope this post gave you some good ideas on classroom organization!!