At the end of the first day of school, some of my students already had messy desks. I teach first grade, so my students have never had to be responsible for keeping their desks orderly before. I'm not quite sure that some students even know what this means. In order to help make my point a little more clear, I decided to take some pictures of some examples.
I first showed my class this student's desk and talked about this being pretty good, but that the bag of counting cubes could be placed in the pencil box.
I then showed them this picture and asked my students what they thought about this one. They agreed that it was pretty organized.
Next, I showed this picture. We again discussed what students thought about this desk and how it could be more organized.
Lastly, I showed this picture in which we again discussed how this student's desk could be more organized.
I didn't mention any names as I showed the pictures, and it wasn't done to make anyone feel bad, it was just a good way to help students realize what is being expected of them. One problem with the two unorganized desks would seem to be the lack of a
pencil box, everyone has one now, but that doesn't mean that things always get put back in the boxes, so the pictures are still helpful.
After showing students the pictures I gave them a couple minutes to make sure that their desk decorum was up to par, or basically that things weren't falling out of their desks. Then I introduced the idea of the Desk Fairy. I let them know that the Desk Fairy would be checking to make sure that they were keeping their desks organized. If the desks were not nice and neat then the Desk Fairy would be leaving a card on their desk as a reminder.
This was just one of those Back to School lessons that needs to be done, but it was actually very helpful. I'v included the link to my Desk Fairy Freebie Cards if you are interested. I have found them to be a useful tool.
FREEBIE! Desk Fairy - Clean Your Desk Notice
Anna Navarre's Teacher Pay Teachers Store
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