Pinterest and stations

 I know I haven't written in a while, like over a month. I have been trying to get things ready for my classroom. And many of you know how addicting Pinterest is. Especially since I can have it so handy on my ipad it makes pinning so easy. I pin a lot of new and fun activities that I often don't get around to use my files that I have been working on for years. How do you all do it? What do you keep from your old files and what do you throw away? Or do you even throw anything away and just pile in all the new stuff into your old files?
   See I have been trying to "organize" my classroom and my classroom materials. I even have a board on pinterest labeled "wishful organization". Because for someone who is a teacher pack rat organization is difficult for me. I got rid of my teacher's desk this year and of course my small group station looks nothing like it does in the Debbie Diller's Spaces and Places book. I am still trying to figure out what to do with the things I get coming into my room such as notes/memos, materials to use for the concepts taught for the week. Oh and the big one is where to store large construction paper projects when my basket is only so big?! Frustrating and we have only been in school for about 13 days. However, I am able to find more stuff now but I need to work on cluttering the small group table/teacher's desk. Has anyone ever put the ruffled table cloth or fabric around their table to "hide" storage underneath? I wanted to try it this year but I haven't had the nerve yet.
  I have also been doing literacy work stations while also trying to fit in our current reading program that we cannot deviate from only add things too. The stations part is working okay. I am having trouble with my pocket chart and magnetic station but I think when I add the name/picture sort in the pocket chart area it will be more exciting. And for the magnetic station I might have a solution to the reluctance to visit the station. Has anyone visited the Confessions of a Homeschooler website? Well she is awesome and does really fun and detailed activities with her kids. Well she has a preschool and a kindergarten curriculum for sale, however if you are willing to venture through her posts you can find many parts of her curriculum as FREEBIES. I stumbled last summer how she has a post for each letter of the alphabet with fun activities for reading, math and pre-writing. I love her lowercase and capital letter sorts and her magnetic page that goes with each letter.

You use the magnetic page with some pom-pom magnets (pom-poms and magnetic circles hot glued together) and you have an instant center. I am going to try that as this summer I made a set of pom-pom magnets that I forgot about that I recently remembered their purpose.

My purpose was not for a long post... now I need to get some sleep as I still have one more day of teaching to do. And I didn't even tell you about my class... another post I guess. They are doing well and I am happy for their progress. Enjoy!