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| Story bag prep! |
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| One of my story bags close up. |
In the summer time, I take a few days and prep my story bags. What is a story bag you ask? Let me tell you about it! Each language arts unit has several stories. (I use Journeys.) As you know, with each story, comes "stuff". Adopted materials, supplemental materials, interactive journal materials, etc. Before using the story bags, I was always looking here and looking there- looking everywhere for what I needed. I got tired of doing this, and then I had a thought- what about combining everything into
one place? Hello! Why didn't I think about that earlier? To take it a step farther, I make the copies that I know I will need ahead of time. Now, I am not stressed on a day to day basis looking for materials. Line at the copy machine? No problem! You don't need it anyway!
Interested? Here is what you will need:
- Hanging Bag- (or you could use a large zip top bag). I got my hanging bags at ReallyGoodStuff.com. I also have a rack in which the bags hang. I can fit about three units per rack.
- Sticker Labels- I labeled each bag with the following: Unit, story, lesson.I began by first labeling my empty bags and doing the copying one unit, one story at a time. Once that was finished, I laid out the unit 1 story bags. Then I pulled out all of my materials for each lesson, and put it in the bag. I had to decide what I needed. For me, I wanted to make sure that each bag had the following inside:
- Homework cover sheet. (This just has the high frequency words, spelling words and weekly skills listed)
- Word Scramble with spelling words. (I use this as my Friday warm-up.)
- Interactive Journal Material- I copy materials that hit on the skills for the week. The kids love this!
- Weekly Reading Comprehension Test
- Words on a Ring- Laminated spelling, vocabulary and high frequency words on a binder ring.
- Words of the Week to use for the focus wall.
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