Transcript

In this section of the classroom, I have these book holders, that as you can see, every student has one. It is an opportunity for them to be organized, to learn how to be organized, which is something that they are developing in the first grade. They don't have space in their desks sometimes to store anything and this is a good system to do that. 

In these book holders, I give them folders. One folder for language, one folder for math, one folder for science, another for social studies, visual arts and so on. So every subject has a folder and they develop the skill of organizing their work in the folder where they should go. This is something that they don't necessarily know at the beginning. The first grade, they don't know what language is, what's math. I tell them "Okay, this goes in the language folder", and they at some point, start understanding, "Okay, so these kinds of things that we do, are similar and they go in language. These are the things for social studies, and these are the things we work on in social studies and that's a separate folder for that." 

I also have a system in place to avoid accidents. That happens a lot in the first grade. The way it works is my students will come this way and they're not allowed to come this way. If they do, they're going to block the people that are coming from the other side. I call them by color, so I can say if you're red, go and get your book holders - so only four students. That way, everybody circulates very quickly and safely, and goes to their desk with their book holder. 

Another thing that I spend time on at the beginning is to have them realize that they have a spot on the shelves. Thats the only spot where they can put their book holders. This way, this one will always be here, this one will always be here, and when they're finished and they have to put it back, it happens in a matter of seconds. Very quickly they put it in the spot and they're good to go.