Getting Crafty for Guided Reading

It all started with this.

Plus an enormous binder that is far too cumbersome to bring home...

hence the lack of a photo.

These are my guided reading bins where *I try* to keep all of my current or upcoming books for the week (or weeks).  Pretty basic.  No labels...simply because I do my groups by color and well, I've never gotten around to making fancy labels for these bins.    :(  

Anyway, I digress.

In all the years I've been teaching both third and first respectively, I have used several 

(ahem...S E V E R A L! far too many to post here!) 

strategies for logging and keeping track of anecdotal records and observations during guided reading.  I have used folders, clipboards, binders, charts, notecards, ......and on and on.  

It has always been something I've wanted to revamp, personalize, and make more efficient but haven't seemed to ever perfect what I needed.  So I keep on using those great resources I've either bought or been given over the years and tweaked or modified as needed.

Currently, I love my big ginormous binder of data collecting and recording and resources right at my finger tips.  However, it is quite large and not handy...at. all.

Needless to say, I got a little motivated when I found these at Walmart.

These are the small ones that fit half sheets of paper.

I have been tweaking, retweaking, and revamping my own guided reading note-taking/checklist/recording system to fit on these small clipboards but it's certainly not ready to share yet.  I'm hoping to have it ready before Monday.  My idea is to either hang these near my guided reading table or just stick them in each color bin ready to pull out with the books and use.  

Before using though, I had to girlify (not a misspelling...my own made up word!) them.  ;)  And since I have a ridiculous amount of ribbon and washi tape, what's a girl to do but add them to these clipboards?!?!  

washi tape from either Target or Walmart...found a while ago and been waiting for a good purpose!

a mess of ribbon trying to find some colors to match my reading groups
(maybe someone should organize this!)

Here were the final results.

one for each group...a colored ribbon at the top denotes the group

(Although I wanted them more decorative, I didn't want something bumpy on the boards that would impact my writing. My goal was to keep it simple but add some color using materials I already owned.)

close up

red and yellow boards

Part one done.  

Now onto the recording sheets to add to each clipboard.  :)