Later Gator...a freebie

Wow...time sure flies in the summer!  It is amazing at how fast time goes when you are NOT at work!  I can't believe it has been so long between my posts.  I know I am probably breaking many proper blogging rules of etiquette.  I wish I could say I have been out of town or super busy on summer tasks, but nope...just relaxing! 

Since it has been a while, I thought I would return to blog world with another freebie.  I create labels for all of my students' folders.  I did this for their notebooks too when I taught fifth grade.  I felt it kept things consistent.  In addition to the labels, all of the folders and notebooks HAVE to be the same color for the subject.  I know that is a little over the top, but it is so much easier to say, "Get out your poetry notebook.  It is the green one," with little ones.  Even the bigger students needed the color cue because they were to lazy inconvenienced to read the label! 

Since last year was my big return to first grade (yippee!), I had to consider what folders and notebooks the little ones would need.  My teaching partner mentioned that she had a folder for students to keep unfinished classwork in so that they could come back to it later to finish.  She called it their classwork folder.  Well, that name was just to boring for me, so I came up with the idea of Later Gator folders.  (These had to be green by the way!)  She loved the improved name and stole borrowed the idea for her own folders.  I always tease her about stealing my stuff!  Students really bought into the idea also and loved reminding each other to put incomplete work into their Later Gator folders so they could finish it later. 

Click HERE to get your copy of the labels I made for the folders.  I used the 2X4 labels and the picture is something I found somewhere on the Internet doing an image search.