Desk Caddies

Hi!

I know, I know!  I missed my Five for Fraturday on Saturday.  I had high hopes of making it happen and then I didn’t.  More on that this weekend!

So here I am with a mid-week post to make up for it.  🙂

I switched from Book Baskets to Desk Caddies this year AND I AM LOVING IT.   It’s the same thing, and I run it the same way, except that the Desk Caddies allow me to have extra special goodies IN ADDITION to books.

I have one per table group and the quick version is this: (you can read the long version here)

I read a book every morning (JUST FOR FUN AND ENJOYMENT!  (read the long version for a longer explanation) and then I pull a stick.  That kid gets to take the book to his/her table for the day.  The book baskets (and now my desk caddies) rotate every day so that the table groups have a variety of books throughout the week.  When they start getting too full, I take some out to make room for new ones.

So there you go.  That’s the gist.

The book baskets just had books.  But the Desk Caddies have TWO sides!  So one side is for books and the other side is for extra special/early finisher/academic/skills based/keep’em busy type of stuff.

Front view

Top View

At this time, I’ve got some ABC cards, Skip Counting cards, Sentence Trees, sight words, and keyboards.

Here’s a close-up look of everything with links (where applicable):

Skip Counting Cards 

My kids LOVE these.  They quiz each other ALL THE TIME!  Yesterday, one of my kids told me I should put the “Count by 10” cards away because they’re too easy now.

I’ll tell you what WASN’T easy.

Cutting these cards out.

NOT! EASY!

KILL! ME! NOW!

I worked on it over the summer and I was DETERMINED to have all three sets of skip counting cards in EACH desk caddy which means there were over a million cards to cut and HOLY COW, THAT’S A LOT OF LAMINATE AND WAY TOO MUCH CUTTING.

My niece and nephew helped me a lot (for a small fee) but I still ended up doing A LOT, and by the end, I felt like I needed rehabilitation for my hand because it was basically stuck in a permanent position of using scissors.

Flip and Solve books from Lyndsey Kuster 

There are ten books in each set so it was easy for me to divide them up among the five desk caddies.  My kids use their whiteboards to solve the problems (they don’t write in the books).

There are A LOT of sets.

Yes.

Why, yes I did.

I laminated and cut all of them, too.  Or my niece and nephew did . . .

Either way, I am pretty much all set for the year and can switch these out as we learn new skills.  🙂  They’re perfect for review!

ABC Book by Kindergarten with Susie

Susie used to work at my school (she is now retired) and I love her book!  I chose the “print four to a page” option so I could shrink the cards down to a manageable size.  I made a sixth set to keep at my teaching table, but I gave it away at parent conferences in a PLEASE TKAE THIS HOME AND PRACTICE IT EVERY DAY WITH YOUR CHILD and HERE, TAKE THESE MAGNET LETTERS, TOO, and OH, HEY, HERE IS AN IPOD WITH APPS.

Okay, not the last one.  🙂

Except for two of my students who are still mastering their letters and sounds, I’m pretty sure I can take these out of the desk caddies.  HOWEVER, I am pretty sure my kids would flip their lids.  They LOVE this book.  I can’t even explain it.  I don’t know.  Susie drew her own pictures and they are absolutely ADORABLE so maybe that’s it.  Anyways . . .

Sentence Trees from Jodi Southard

There are 100 cards in each set so I put ten cards on a ring.  Each desk caddy has two sets.  Jodi has sight words, short vowels, long vowels, digraphs, etc.  I printed each skill on a different color and will switch these out as the year goes by, too.

If you asked me what I did this summer, I would say I went to Mexico for my anniversary AND THEN I DROWNED IN A POOL OF LAMINATION.

True story.  Practically.

Anywho . . .

Right now, I have a group of girls who are obsessed with these cards.  They play “teacher” with them.  🙂

The keyboards (SO SO SO FUN!) are just clipart that I inserted into a PowerPoint document.  You can grab the clipart {HERE}. They come in a jillion colors.

The sight word lists are currently unavailable.  🙁  My teammate created them and I asked her to put them in her store, but she hasn’t had a chance yet.  I’ll link to them as soon as she does!

Now, right before I took the picture of the desk caddy shown above, I organized it.  You know I organized it and made it look pretty for the picture.

Because, people, first graders don’t care.  They don’t care at all.

I do have to say that they are very very very good about keeping the books on one side and the skill stuff on the other.  But that’s about it.

So I just send out a plea every once in awhile and my three or four kids that love organizing and are just as Type A as me GET TO WORK.  And when that happens, it’s like someone is giving me chocolate.

🙂

My teammate, Heather, had a lot of this stuff going on last year because she already had Desk Caddies.  She was definitely my inspiration!

So there you go.

Desk Caddies — not just for supplies!

****EDITED*** I got a ton of questions and emails and messages (and by ton, you know I mean three or four) asking about WHERE I got the desk caddies.  I’m an idiot for not linking to the site in the first place!!  I’ve linked it every time I say “Desk Caddies” and here is the link, too!

They come in 6 packs in different colors, and you can find them Amazon!

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