Classroom Quick Tips Linky!

HAPPY, HAPPY, JOY, JOY! It's Thursday and it is the VERY first linky for Classroom Quick Tips. This is really the brainchild of my BBB Angela over at Hippo Hooray for 2nd Grade. (If you are not following her yet, stop reading, go over to the side of my blog list where I have some of my favorites, click on her name, and FOLLOW her! That girl is seriously AH-Mazing!)

Angela and I both started our blogs with the intention of sharing our classroom with other teachers. Lately though we have been feeling the immense pressure to buy and sell on TPT. NOW! Don't get me wrong. I LUH-HUV TPT. I love making stuff and I love buying stuff. What I'm not so much into is when that is all someone posts about or uses their Pinterest for. So Angela and I thought we would get back to our bloggy roots and share the things we DO in our classroom. And that is exactly what our new linky is all about.

Font: Jessica Stanford
Background: I Teach? What's Your Super Power?
Frame: Tonya's Treats for Teachers

So this is what you do. It's super simple. Just take a slow walk around your classroom. Take a close look around at EVERYTHING. What's something you have/do in your classroom that makes your life as a teacher easier? The key words are "Quick Tips." Snap a photo and tell us a little ditty about how your tip helps you. The only rule is that you may not link up with a paid product. Freebies are A-OK! This linky is set to launch TODAY! and will continue weekly on Thursdays. We hope you'll join in on the fun with us!

And now, here is my quick tip. I do Literacy Work Stations in my room and one of our stations is the Listening Station. My tip has to do with how I organized my books and c/ds.  Here is what I did to help keep my books and c/d's organized. Put a sticker with a number on the book. Put another sticker with that same number on the c/d. That way the kiddo's know to look for the same number and they aren't wasting a bunch of time searching for the matching book and c/d.

Now, if you are like me you have a TON of books and c/d's. I used to let the kiddo's choose any book and c/d but as my collection grew that just stopped being feasible. So I use the numbers to also have my kiddo's practice their ordering skills.  I put out about 10 books and c/ds at a time. I place them in order from smallest to largest. Sometimes I put a chunk out in order ( like below) and sometimes they are random numbers. They are responsible for making sure that they stay in number order when their time at listening station is done.

Since I am the one putting them out it is very easy to put them away ( in number order) and I don't have to worry about searching through the stack for a match. The numbers are right there.

So, that is my quick tip. I hope you will link up and share a quick tip from your classroom!