My Adventures on a Cart, Part 2

Day 7 of 31 at TWT

Yesterday I started to write about my teaching life on a cart.  As often happens while I'm writing, I thought I had a small, quick idea... and then the words just kept falling out of my mind.  Teaching from a cart has been such a big part of my life that I had quite a lot to say about it!  So much, in fact, that I didn't even get to my original "main point", which was to give you a tour of my cart and how I make it work.

So today, in part 2, I want to introduce you to my current cart.  I'm really surprised I haven't named it, considering how I love naming things.  Not to mention my cart is a friend that never leaves my side at school!  Maybe this is a good time for a name -- better late than never!  Cartie?  Store-y? Rolley?  (I'm infamous in my family for naming things that way.) I kind of like Rolley, actually.  :-)

Anyway, Rolley has all sorts of amazing compartments to help me out.  She was already pretty amazing when I got her, with an enclosed bottom compartment, two shelves, a drawer with dividers, and slots for pens/markers!  However, I've really made her my own traveling room with some special modifications.

Look at all that space!  I was in love as soon as the secretary got her out of the storage room!

First, the top layer: The clear boxes are my pass-out-materials boxes, one for each grade level.  I discovered they had to have lids so worksheets wouldn't fly away as I sped down the hallway!  My example binders, laptop, and teaching clipboard (with attendance/formative assessment checklists, my plans, and my schedule on it!) go in the middle.  New after I'd had a room are the two little black bins: blank notecards in the left front corner and a place to put notecard suggestions for the "word of the day" on the right corner.  Last but not least, in the middle: a box of extra pencils for those kids who somehow never have one.

top layer

The front of the middle layer is all for students and contains my most essential procedures. First, turn-in drawers for each class, labeled in green.  On top of each set of turn-in drawers, the red slivers peeking out are my absent work folders for each grade level.  Each is an accordion file with 10 folders inside: 2 for each day of the week.  One says "(Day) required"; homework and other essential items that must be picked up. The other says "(Day) optional"; other stuff we did that they might want but doesn't NEED to be made up.

middle layer, front

Behind the turn-in drawers, on the back of the middle layer, are my prize boxes (one with big prizes and one with small prizes), speakers in the corners (the cord runs up to the top layer to plug into my computer as needed), flyswatters (for a vocab game we play), and my sports drink (I don't like drinking water!).

middle layer, back

On the doors to the enclosed bottom layer, I taped my hall pass holders.  After asking in Spanish to go, my students must choose the appropriate hall pass for where they are going and then sign out. (You can just barely see the green sign-out clipboard wedged beside the left-hand turn-in drawers in the first picture!)

hall passes!

Inside the doors of the bottom layer, the students can find supplies (markers, scissors, glue, dictionaries) and "What do we do when we're done?" activities.  On the left (hard to see, sorry!) is a big blue accordion folder of extra practice activities, filed by topic.  On the right, they can peruse my collection of children's books in Spanish, including many of my favorite childhood books!

bottom storage

That's Rolley!  Hope you enjoyed seeing how she helps me function no matter where I am!  Tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion of this little mini-series: my "homework board" and my "walls"!