Years and years ago I was at a conference and the presenter was talking about creative ways to store games and activities. She described something similar to this method. My teaching partner and I did some IKEA shopping to see what we could find and made it our own. This was the perfect solution for storing flat games and activities such as cut up sentences.
It was the right height so that our second graders could reach it by themselves. It would be perfect for a lot of the activities you find on TpT that are printed out and generally flat.
Supplies needed:
Kids Clothes rack – ours was from IKEA but I don’t think
they make that specific one anymore but THIS or THIS could work
Hangers – kid sized from IKEA, older but HERE is their current version
Packaging tape
Hole Punch
Zip Ties
Gallon (or larger) Size Ziploc bag – the ones with the
plastic zipper are better than the others since little hands don’t often seal
the whole thing and pieces can fall out
Take the plastic bag and turn it upside down. Reinforce the bottom of the bag with the
packaging tape. I usually just take a
piece and fold it over both sides of the bag.
Then punch two holes where you taped.
It doesn’t really matter how far apart they are. Use the zip ties to attach the bag to the
hanger. Cut off the extra zip tie and
you are ready to fill your bags.
The 2 gallon bags are harder to find but come in handy for
bigger games that don’t fit in a regular gallon bag.
Hanging games upside down can definitely come with
problems. Often if we had little pieces
we would put those in a smaller baggie.
Then if it fell out, it was at least contained in the baggie. We worked with our kiddos on how to close the
bags. Again, this is where the zippered
bags are easier than the yellow and blue make green ones.
This can take up a decent amount of space depending on the
size of your clothes rack but we figured out that we could store our math
manipulatives underneath it so there was no wasted space. I had one of those shelves you see at Target
that has different size plastic bins in a variety of sizes that go on the three
shelves. It is designed for toys but we
put math manipulatives in it and slid it under the hanging bags.
I got my clothes rack back out and made some new bags at
home for K. Right before M was born I
made a bunch of busy bags. Some were
things K could do alone and some were activities she needed some help
with. I figured I would need some new
activities to entertain her once the baby was born but also some activities she
could work on next to me while I fed the baby.
I hung these up the same way I did in the classroom and put it in my
dining room. Her busy bag activities are a little bulkier than cut up sentences but they still fit in the ziploc bags.
Unlike my second graders, K can’t reach these activities on her own and I like it that way. She needs an adult to help her get the bag she wants. Some of her busy bag activities were too bulky for a Ziploc bag so I bought tote bags from Michaels and just loop them over the hangers. Works the same way!
Unlike my second graders, K can’t reach these activities on her own and I like it that way. She needs an adult to help her get the bag she wants. Some of her busy bag activities were too bulky for a Ziploc bag so I bought tote bags from Michaels and just loop them over the hangers. Works the same way!
Happy Organizing!!