It's Quickly Approaching - Meet the Teacher Night!

As I prepare for my classroom and my first year of teaching, I have been reading on teaching forums and blogs and noticed a lot of talk about how different teachers do supplies.  Most of my students will bring their supplies to meet the teacher night in just over a week, so I wanted to get my supply plan taken care of quickly! I thought I'd share with you what I'm planning!  My school uses community supplies.  Everything the kids bring in is meant to be shared.  On Meet the Teacher night, I will have labeled bins set around the classroom for students to sort their supplies into.  I will take enough out of these bins on the first day of school to have one of THESE for each table:

I have six students seated at each table and they will share these supplies while they are seated.  Each bin will have six pairs of scissors (which I clearly don't have yet!), six glue sticks, three crayon boxes, and one box of markers.

When students are in centers and not at their tables, they will have all the supplies they need right there in their center.  I organize them using the same carriers as above.  Everything they need for their center... from instructions, to task cards, to markers, and scissors will be right there in their carrier! Now being a first year teacher, I don't know how well this will go over, but it's how my school runs.  I also really like the idea of teaching students to share as I think it will strengthen their community.  It will be important to stress how if ONE person doesn't take care of the supplies then it really does spoil it for the whole group! 

I have a couple items to share with you in case you're in the middle of planning your Meet the Teacher Night as well! The first is a document to make your own magnets to send home with parents.  It is a powerpoint file so you can edit to include your own information.  I personalized these, printed them on cardstock, laminated, and placed a strip of magnetic tape to the back so parents can always have them handy on the refrigerator! Click the picture to download for free from my TPT Store. 

The red font is titled Elephants in Cherry Trees and can be downloaded for free at:

The next thing I have to share is a form I will have parents fill out on Meet the Teacher Night (or take home and return with student).  I adapted this volunteer form to meet my needs from one Cara Carroll posted last year.  Hopefully you will be able to use it in your classroom.  I tried to keep my volunteer options pretty vague so there would be many opportunities within each choice! Click the picture to download!

Last but not least I have been working on creating some literacy centers for the beginning of the year.  I decided I didn't want to have to worry about creating a million centers every week, so I have one word work center that will stay consistent throughout the whole year. This could be used two ways -- students can choose which activity to do each time they visit the center, or you could choose for them and set out only the materials you will need for that particular choice.  The best thing?  All you need for these centers is a copy of your words for the week, the instructions, the included recording sheets, and letter tiles! :) This unit can be purchased at my TPT Store for only $3.00!!!

Alright... whew.  That was my most exhausting entry yet! I'm so excited to be able to share some items with you that will hopefully make your back to school process a little easier! :) Now I'm off to snuggle with my puppies and eat some LUNCH! 

By the way... I'm curious... How do you organize your classroom supplies?  Do you use individual or community?  What has worked or not worked for you in the past?