Journey's Binder Organization

My district adopted the new version of Journey's Reading Curriculum this year.  There is SO MUCH stuff to dig through.  To make it even more difficult to juggle, we are using the balanced literacy framework so that means we have three teacher manuals to juggle daily.  Seriously- balancing one of my knee to read the interactive comprehension questions while holding the GIANT teacher book to read the listening story...

I just HAD to do something about it to make it more manageable!


Here is what I did:

I created a binder for each unit to store all materials.  I used the online site and printed off many of the items that I will need each week.

This is the first page of each week of the unit.  It has all of the items that need to be copied.  The green poly DVD case holds all of the Phonics Dance cards, word wall words and picture to be added to my reading genre signs for the week.

This is a closer look at what I keep in the poly case.  I still need to tape the Phonics Dance activity cheat sheet to back of each Phonics Dance card. 

These are student comprehension worksheets that I made that are the "apply" section of the comprehension mini-lessons.  The program tells students to apply each comprehension mini-lesson to independent reading but this makes it easier to make sure that they really understand what I am asking of them.  At first I had them use post-it notes to mark the examples but I noticed that they had many misconceptions.

I include the items that I have my students complete that corresponds with the weekly spelling word focus for word work each week.  These came from Made in First Grade.  I HIGHLY recommend checking them out!  I LOVE them!  :)

A spelling test form.  (I hope to get it approved to switch over to at least some sentence dictation sentences soon!)

The weekly comprehension test.

This is made by unit and not weekly.  The Word Study lessons want the students to draw the headings in each day in their blank notebooks but we are limited on time. I made the headings and correct amount of columns for the entire unit. I also will staple a baggie to keep their sort cards on the back page.  (This is similar to the homework folder baggies.)

 The Journey's curriculum comes with paper cards but the cards are giant and the font is tiny!  So I made my own that work better for sorting.  The students cut these apart and add it to the baggie in their unit sort book baggie each week.

The Journey's program has ML posters that it tells you to write each day on chart paper.  Um... nope.  So I just type them up for each unit and display them on my board throughout the week.

I copied the ML questions and I place it on the back of the poster.  I highlight (This is next week's and I haven't looked at it yet!) the questions so that I can hold this during the lesson.

It also has a chart in the ML to use so I also just made one and keep it in a thick page protector and write on it with a dry erase marker. 

This is the focus wall that is included with the program.  I keep it in a sleeve just to keep everything together.

This is just 1 week of items each unit has 5 weeks.  My binders are busting at their seams but at least EVERYTHING is finally organized and in one place!  :)  I just need to go through and write "original" on everything with a yellow marker so that I don't misplace them!  :)

Now that unit 2 is complete- I can go back to finishing my science matter unit!  :)

Have a great night!  :)