Student Cups

My 4th grade neighbor had a great idea about how to organize student materials. In the past I have always had a "group organizer" which was one plastic, color coded container where I kept scissors, glue, pencils, crayons, dictionaries, etc. for the entire group. The problem, for me, occurred when I no longer had my kids sitting in a traditional 'group.'

We move the seating in my classroom around a lot and many times I will let the kids vote on the set up they want. Sometimes that means there is no center of the group for the materials to sit on, so it ends up going on the floor, which is never ideal.

Anyway, my 4th grade neighbor told me about the amazing use of putting little strips of velcro on the bottoms of a plastic up (like a Solo cup) and another little strip on the desk.

My only concern was that Velcro is super sticky, and that means having to remove the lovely gunk at the end of each year.

Solution? Packing tape.

I started with a paw print cut out. They have these at any teacher store, as well as Michael's, Staples, etc. and they can usually be found in a variety of shapes and colors. I've seen everything from umbrellas to dinosaurs. I use black paw prints because of our jungle theme. They're usually around $3.50 for a pack of 36, so good deal!

I taped over the paw print with clear packing tape, the same way that I tape over the kid's name tags.

Then I stuck the piece of Velcro onto the paw print. I keep the fuzzy side on the desk, don't ask me why.

I stuck a piece of Velcro (rough side) to the bottom of their cup. These are just like the red Solo cups, except Hefty makes black ones... so of course I went with that.

Viola! The cups won't spill over and I won't have any sticky Velcro to remove at the end of the year since once I peel up the packing tape the Velcro will come with it!