How to Save Your Stations (And Your Sanity!)

It’s confession time. I am awesome at making stations. Math, literacy—you name it. I’m even pretty good at remembering to print, laminate, and cut them in time for their debut in the classroom.

Storing them? That’s a completely different story. When it comes to saving my station materials in a nice, orderly manner, it’s rather embarrassing. Shoving them all in a box is just SO EASY, you guys.

But you know what’s not easy? Having to remake half of my materials the following year, and the year after that, because I was too lazy to find a suitable way to organize.

You may be asking, “Well, Erin, what about plastic bins?”

“Have you tried file folders?”

“I looooove using shoe boxes to store mine. Have you tried those?”

Yes. Takes up too much space, pieces fall out and get lost, and nobody has enough shoe boxes for my classroom needs. But thanks for the suggestions!

At long last…PROBLEM. IS. SOLVED. Introducing, the super organized, only s-l-i-g-h-t-l-y time-consuming (3 steps, people!), station storage solution:

It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3. Really:

1. Put pieces in large Ziploc bag.

2. Line left-hand side of bag with duct tape, folding over so both sides are covered.

3. Triple hole punch that bad boy, stick it in a binder, and voila!

This works well for flat pieces, and for stations that require extra materials (dice, markers, etc.), I just attach a tag to the bag for easy assembly.

This is AWESOME because now, my stations aren’t randomly strewn throughout my room AND the binders can be sorted by month/theme and neatly stored on a bookshelf. The trick to this is starting from DAY 1 so you can establish healthy habits for the year.

I don’t remember where I first heard of or saw this idea, but if I ever meet the person who is the brains behind this operation, I will hug and kiss them all over.

Here’s to making life easy! Visit the links below for even MORE bright ideas that are sure to save you time, effort, and headaches.

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I believe that the best way to put students first is to put teachers first.

How can we do that?

Arm you with high-quality tools: Sleep peacefully at night knowing you’re doing what’s best for your students.

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Light your spark: Putting fun back into your classroom after the hardest teaching years can be just what you and your students need.

2 Comments

Courtney

August 16, 2014 at 5:44 pm

HAHA! I am totally like you with my organization of task cards and center games!! :/ I have quite a few stray cards lingering around my room at this very moment! Can't wait to try this out 🙂 Thanks for the tip!!
Courtney
Teaching in Paradise

Jennifer @ Simply Kinder

August 17, 2014 at 2:48 am

I have used packing tape before but never duct tape. More durable I am sure! Love that you hole punch them! Brilliant!

Jennifer from Simply Kinder

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