Let's be honest, classroom storage can get really wild, especially when we add in all the manipulatives, all the centers and everything. So how do we make sure that our classroom is not getting overrun by all of our physical manipulatives? That's what we talking about today on that music podcast.
You're listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tarbet, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher and the elementary music summit each week, Bryson and his guests will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show Notes and resources mentioned in this episode can be found at that musicteacher.com Welcome
back to that music Podcast. Today, I'll be sharing some of my favorite ways to store physical manipulatives. If you know anything about me, you know that I love digital manipulatives. You know that I love Google Drive and I love how it indexes everything, and you can find everything. Canva is my best friend. I love all the digital side of things, but there's something to be said about physical manipulatives for a few reasons. One, a lot of times I hear people say that their subs are not allowed to have access to any technology, so you can't use any of that in your sub plans. So these physical manipulatives or centers can be great way to to leave some sub plans, especially in a oops. I wasn't expecting to be out. Kind of thing. You can just kind of throw something together a little bit quickly if you already have the the physical manipulatives in addition to that, you know, raise your hand if you've ever lost the internet while you were teaching, or lost power completely. You know, things happen, right? But beyond that, beyond just, you know, sometimes the technology isn't accessible. I think there's something to be said about children using physical manipulatives. They use a lot of technology now, both in and out of the classroom, and I think there's something to be said about actually allowing them to physically touch things and move things and mess around with things. So I have lots of manipulatives that I use in my classroom. Popsicle sticks are my favorite ones. They're cheap. You can use them for lots of different things. They don't take up a lot of room to store. Actually, I just stored my popsicle sticks in like a big old dish basket and just kind of like flower girl them out when I'm passing them out, you know. And we really kind of simplify it that way, but a lot of times when I hear people, you know, asking about things like centers or physical manipulatives, it's all about like, all right, where do I store these? How do I make sure that I know where they are and that they're organized in a way, and I totally get that because me and my ADHD, ADHD brain, if I can't see them, they don't exist a lot of the time, and I totally forget that they either have them. Today, I'm going to be sharing three of my favorite ways to store physical manipulatives in the classroom, and I would love for you to share your advice as well. So feel free to tag us on Instagram, at that music teacher.com if you have a storage tip, so that we can share the information. So without any further ado, let's get started. First up, we have something that's fairly simple, which is basically just like one of these plastic shoe boxes. These are pretty, usually pretty affordable. You can get them pretty much anywhere, like the dollar store, I think is where I got these. This one's a Sterilite, Sterilite, but you know, I'm sure there are many other different brands. So in here I have, this is actually a center that I used. So I have rhythm race. Can't remember who made this one. Let's see if it's on here. It's not on here. If you know who this is, let me know. But I have a rhythm race center in here. So I have the instructions, I have the game board, I have all the pieces. So I use this as a sub plan. So if I had a sub, I would say, hey, pull out the rhythm race. And I told them where it was, and the students already knew how to play this, so they they're able to do it pretty well. So this is a really good way story, because they're cheap. They they can store things and keep them safe. These are really good for centers, especially ones that have smaller pieces. And you know what I don't like about these is they can't really hold a lot of, like, flat papers, like in here, there's a couple, but they're, like, bent, so they're fine. But I'll show you some other ways to store other, other manipulatives like that as well. So shoeboxes. These are great. These are cheap. This is probably nothing crazy to you, but you know, these are some of my favorites. Next is my absolute favorite. And these are these scrap box these scrapbook boxes from Michaels. I don't know if they have generic ones. I've had these for a while, so back in the day, at least, this is like you can only get them in Michaels, they're about $10 each when they're not on sale, so that's kind of pricey, but they are a good investment. I will say, at Michaels, you do get a 15% discount as a teacher, and it includes a discount on sales items. This is not sponsored by Michaels, but let's get those discounts. So how I use these in my classroom is I have them sorted by concepts. So this specific concept is like, is like manipulatives. So if I actually go inside, it obviously big old train. But even better, kind of a double tip is I use these manila folders to hold things. So inside this middle folder are the song like I have, like Song things for Old McDonald. So within the box I have the folders, and then I have some smaller folders that have, like, icons for what's this one? This is icons for engine, engine, you know, has little trains, engine, engine, right? So a lot of different things. So I had, like, Bb, Bumble. I have all these different things, and I have everything is in an envelope. So somebody like this one's BB Bumblebee, and it's like an old school like Bill envelope again, it's whatever, it's whatever you have. But what I like about it is it's so much easier for me to be able to pull this box when I need my song manipulatives or my song icons, than to go through and try to find engine, engine number nine. But no, all right, it's gonna be in here somewhere. I can pull this one out. This one out. So these scrapbook boxes are great. Again. They're kind of expensive when you buy a lot of them, but they are. They've lasted forever. Like, if you take care of these, they will last your career. And they store a lot, and they stack really nicely. They have a little bit of a lip on here so that, like, the slide around. These are great. And then I actually have a bonus one for you. So let's do this bonus. All right, so a little bonus. This has nothing to do with manipulative storage, but I found this while, this little thing while I was going to find my boxes, so I wanted to show you. So this isn't a basically a plastic sheet that you can put papers in, and it turns it into, essentially laminated so you can use a dry erase marker on it. What I love about these is one there's less plastic in the world because you're not laminating every single thing. But also, you can really easily turn one worksheet into a sheet that anyone can do multiple times. You just erase it between them. These are pretty affordable. I'm sure you can get these anywhere, anywhere where educational supplies are sold, are sold. But these are great. I love them. I had to share. Last up is this little like craft box thing. This one was also for Michaels. I think this is like 50 bucks. When it's not on sale. It's kind of expensive. But again, it's, it's sturdy, it's going to stack it. It has, it has a lot of stuff in here. So what I like about this is it's a case for a lot of smaller cases. In these cases, I can pull out when I need something specific. And as you can see, I used a label maker to make it a little bit more clear what's in each thing. So for instance, if I were to open this box, I have, let's see what happened here. In this box, I have bass clef cards. So these are bass clef I think these are from David Rowe, but basically like, alright, spell, spell the word, find the bass clef. But then I also have my note name dots. So if I wanted to put out some notes, I could put these out the boot marker dots. I have some fruit with the pre note, pre iconic notation on it, all kinds of different things. But so I use these for like, physical manipulatives that I use a lot. So for instance, these are stuck. These are the popsicle sticks that I use that have magnets on the back, that I put magnets on the back so that I could use them on my board when they're using the smaller ones. And then here are tiny broken ones for Tikka Tikka or Tikka TI and titika when we use those, so I didn't lose them. So again, what I love about these, they all kind of slide in and then you only have to carry the one box. A lot of things can go in here. Absolutely love these kind of expensive but it's a good investment if you're going to be in it for the long haul. Our last little bonus tip is, regardless of how you decide you want to store your manipulatives stick to a system. So if you're going to sort everything where it's stored together by like objects. So for instance, all of the rhythmic stuff is over here. All the melodic stuff is over here. That works. If you're going to do it where you have all of your your post office games are in here, even the rhythmic or melodic, that's fine. Or if you're going to have all of your icons here, that's fine. Whatever works for you, it works for you. Again, I think that physical manipulators have a place in the classroom, but they can be really easy to forget that they're there, especially if you're me and have that object permanence issue ADHD thing going on. So if you have, like, a lot of manipulatives, it might be worth going in and kind of creating an index of what you have, so that when you sit down a lesson plan, you aren't going off of your memory of what manipulatives you have. Because let's be honest, there's nothing worse than creating spending about a bunch of time, like cutting out and laminating and making manipulatives and then finding out you already had ones that could work, that's so frustrating. It's happened to me so many times. So however you store them, store them in a way that you're able to see them, store them away, we're able to pull them quickly. And if you do a lot of centers, store them in a way that the students are able to put them away. Is another bonus tip. So with that being said, I hope you gained some insight on how to store some of your physical manipulatives, your centers, or whatever you have in your classroom. I would love to hear your favorite storage tips. Tag us over on Instagram at that music teacher, or send us an email Hello at that music teacher.com we would love to figure out if there are any other ways that we can support you if you haven't joined us inside that music teacher community, we would love to have you inside we have content specific professional development live every month, as well as a back catalog of over a year now of master classes from previous months. Certificates are included if you need those for your CEUs, regardless, we would love to have you inside and in case nobody has told you lately, thank you so much for making a difference in the lives of the students that you teach you.
