In my classroom, I have a bookcase full of magazine files which are from
IKEA. They are plain white and cheap. (You can view them
here) I used
to let my kids decorate their own on the first day of school and while
it was a nice time filler for the first day of school, I realized that
1) A bit of me cringed when I had to look at a magazine file that
was scribbled over and misspelled the whole year
2) Most likely 99.9% of the students toss their magazine file
in the garbage 2 minutes after they finish 4th grade
So...
I went ahead and decorated them myself.
A little scrapbook paper and glue does a magazine file some good.
I put some packaging tape over the paper to make them more durable
and added numbers so I didn't have to redo them every year.
This is their second year. I might need to replace them next year,
but we'll see- they look pretty good so far.
Anyways, on to what is actually kept in the boxes...
I've tried doing these a few different ways, but this year I'm all
about keeping it simple.
Students keep the book they are reading as well as a
reading journal in their book boxes. We may add some other
book information as the year goes on, but to start with- that is it.
The notebook looks like this:
(I can't figure out how to turn it around, so just turn your head, I guess)
On the inside of notebook cover there is a question guide.
The questions range from-
*What genre is the book?*
to
*What character are you most like and why?*
On the other page is a list of what each student is reading.
Here is the inside of one of my student's notebooks.
They pick the question each time they independently read,
write the date so I know what book it goes with and
writes down their thoughts and answers.
It's quick, easy and keeps each student accountable for their reading.
