First Day of School Procedures: Organizing School Supplies

I originally posted this in 2015 and I'm reposting it because I dealing with school supplies is my second favorite part of the first day of school (after meeting the students). I know longer get to do it in my role as instructional coach but I still love school supplies. 

Students come on the first day and we deal with supplies. If a student bought everything on our school supply list, it would fill several grocery bags. Some are class supplies and need to be taken up in an organized way.

Our students share 3 teachers all day long and stay with their homeroom. My team and I discuss before hand what we need for our classes. And then we each decide what to do with the rest. My first year teaching, I do not remember what I did. I do remember that it was a mess. I went back and looked at my teaching journal and from my first day of teaching I have this sketch.

I wished someone had talked to me about collecting supplies on the first day, because I struggle with organization. (Have you seen the title of my blog?) After that first day, I realized I needed to do better and I have picked them up like this every since. I put baskets/boxes/tubs around the room on the first day of school with labels. After introductions, names, a quick overview of the day, we dig into supplies. I go down the list of supplies and ask students to get out one or two supplies at a time. If we are going to keep it in the classroom, I dismiss a few groups at a time to take it to the right spot. If they are going to keep it, I suggest a good way to store it, keep it, set it up, etc. I also give groups a Sharpie to write their names when necessary.

Then at the end of the day, I can go through all the baskets, and put the supplies away.

If the supply list calls for multiples of the same things, I have the students keep one and I take the other and store it in large plastic bags with their name on it. From experience, I have seen them lose the extra supplies before they have a chance to use them. Since these supplies are meant to least ALL year, I try to make that happen.

Since school supplies are my favorite, I love seeing so many brand new school supplies all at once! It is one of my favorite parts of the first day of school, especially since it is more organized then the first time.