Today, I’m going to discuss how reorganizing your small group nook will help to streamline your materials and paperwork for small group time. Keeping your small group area neat and organized will help cut down on distractions and wasted time while you’re at Small Group. Here’s everything I did while reorganizing my Small Group nook.
So, I decided I couldn’t start my new Daily 5 routine and this second semester feeling unorganized and messy. I told myself, reorganizing your Small Group nook is essential!
How I Did It
I bought two 3-drawer organizers for $10 each at Walmart. I’m going to spray paint them this summer so that they match! I bought chevron scrapbook paper to cut apart and put inside of the drawers to make them a bit fancier. I also printed a red, green, orange, blue, and purple group label for the front of the drawers. That way, I can store all of my materials for the week in that drawer.
This shows the inside of the drawers. Just set the strip down in the drawer and tape the sides to keep it in place.
And these stack on top of each other so nicely! I stuck them into one of my cubbies next to my Small Group area! This will massively organize the stacks, folders, and baggies of materials that are usually just floating around on my desk.(Here is an Amazon affiliate link to the 3 drawer containers if you’re interested.)
Organizing Hands-on Materials
I also decided to move my bookshelf off the back wall and put it sideways against the computer table so that only I could really see it. Although I have it ‘organized,’ it still looks messy for now, so I don’t want it to be the focal point! And I like the way I don’t have to turn my back to the kiddos to get stuff I need!
Top Shelf:
- Squeeze toys. I let my kiddos play with this while we read. Some of my little ones really need the distraction to keep on task.
- Colored pencils and highlighters.
- Index cards for sight words.
- Silly Sentence cards from an older phonics set that I have leftover from the last teacher in my classroom.
2nd Shelf:
- Word highlighters
- Witch fingers for tracking
- Spacemen bucket for putting space in between words in sentences
- Whiteboard markers and socks for erasing
- Whisper phones (homemade from PVC pipe)
I also have six extra cubbies not being used right now! I moved my kids’ cubbies down a few spots so I could reserve these extra six cubbies right next to my area.
Are you interested in the hands-on materials? Here are affiliate links to everything I showed in this blog post.
- Squeeze toys
- 3 drawer organizer
- Individual whiteboards
- EXPO markers
- Witch/goblin fingers
- Whisper phones
- Spacemen for writing spaces
Reorganizing My Small Group Nook
So here is my nook from far away. I love it! So cozy for my future Small Group sessions.
For more small group in the classroom organization tips, check out this post.
