Nancy Gallaher uses Wikki Stix in her classroom and recommends toothbrush holders as great storage devices.

A colleague of mine uses a clear plastic shoe bag to store all kinds of things from calculators to markers or erasers.

Another creative double-duty solution is to use children’s socks for white board erasers. They put the sock on their hand to erase the board! After students are done using the marker, put the marker in the sock and then put the board and sock in a ziplock bag.

For more budget friendly options, visit Oriental Trading for some colorful storage solutions.

How do you keep things organized in your classroom?

For more information on differentiation strategies to reach ALL learners, see Susan Fitzell’s book, Special Needs in the General Classroom, Strategies That Make It Work. Available in both print and electronic versions!

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Creative Learning Fun

Wikki Stix

Acrylic hand-knitting yarn, coated with a microcrystalline wax makes for simple, no mess learning tools. They can serve as interactive concrete examples to your abstract lesson plans. Demonstrate, for instance, the function/structure of a cell; or have your students fill in states/countries on a map of the world.

“These flexible, wax covered yarn strands might be the most interesting new teaching tool to come along in decades.” – Science and Children Magazine (National Science Teachers Assn.)

Youthful energy is a wonderful thing but during a lesson, students drumming along to the music in their heads is a distraction. Wikki Stix can serve as silent drum sticks, an appropriate outlet.

They also serve as an appropriate outlet for fidgeting hands, which might otherwise be pulling out hair.

One teacher puts them in baggies and leaves them at the door so that students can take them when they come in, and return them on their way out. A marked improvement in behavior was noticed.

Another wonderful thing about them is that they are re-usable. They, also, can be stuck to white boards as a replacement for expensive dry erase markers.

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