I love the idea of writing centers and having writing materials accessible at all times for children. I even created a bird-themed writing center recently and saw how much my children enjoyed it. I needed however, a portable option too. Once again, my Thirty-One organizing tote came to my rescue!
Pin It
I just have my portable writing center stocked with the basics so far, but I am thrilled that I still have room to add additional supplies when needed.
We have customized our portable writing center to work with our WriteShop writing curriculum.
Once again, I added a clear, open file box which can be purchased either on Amazon or at The Container Store.
The clear file box provided the perfect place to store our grammar file-folders, colored paper, notebook paper and other specialty papers for writing.
StoryBuilders are writing prompts that get kids writing. There are four different downloadable themes available and can be used for multiple age-levels. StoryBuilder cards provide students with the basic elements of a story—character, character trait, setting, and plot. Each element card is a different color. I placed ours in an index-card size accordion file.
All the pockets are on the outside of the tote. This makes it so easy to see and locate items! One pocket holds all the Post-It notes. Since this side mesh pocket stretches, it is easy to grab these little pads of paper.
The opposite side mesh pocket holds a pencil box filled with pencils, a pair of scissors, highlighters, a dry-erase marker and a glue stick.
I even have a couple empty pockets! One will house a mini-stapler once I buy it, and the others will probably get to hold new markers. This writing center also contains a small dry-erase board, a 3-hole punch, a thesaurus, a clipboard, a writer’s reference book and 2 writing journals. I still need to find our small dictionary and add it to the bag.
I am loving that this writing center is easy to store and is portable. My kids work in various places in the house, so now they can easily move their writing center and have all the materials in one place. Once the weather gets nice, they can even do their writing outside.
I think I could use a couple more of these totes! You can see how I used one to organize our reading curriculum, and I love how Jolanthe uses it as her teaching tote.
Writing centers are wonderful. When I was an enrichment teacher, I would make centers for the classroom teachers similar to the one you posted. The kids loved it and all of the kids benefited from it!
I LOVE this idea!!!! Hmmm….gave me a few of my own! Thanks!
This is such a great storage idea! I'm off to the store to snag some bins. Right now Container Store is having a sale and the bin is $5.39 and if you have the Teachers Discount (I went into the store a few weeks ago and they honored it with my homeschool Letter of Intent) it makes for a great deal.
Your portable writing center is fabulous–my favorite one yet! Who wants to hunt around the house for missing highlighters or the thesaurus that grew legs? So much better for everyone to keep things all in one place.
Great idea for a writing center. Um…I may need a few more organizing totes myself!! 🙂
Come to my house and make one for me!!! Great, great ideas!
I have one of these totes ath someone gave me with a knitting statement on the front. And it's no good as a knitting bag, but I didn't know what else to do with it. A while back ago a gal that I worked with at our yarn shop made a bag that did this very thing, for all the owner's business files and whatnot. I kept saying I needed to make one and now? PPPPSHHHT! No sewing required!!!! I love it! I am wondering how many of these guys you have…..I have 4 children, 3 who are of age to do something, so I am thinking that they have their own bag!
Oh my goodness, what a wonderful idea! I never would have thought to do this! I’m so looking forward to reorganizing my Write Shop A and B using this tote, thank you SO much for offering it in that contest! What a blessing, I will need to start using this method for organizing the rest of our curriculum, I see a big 31 purchase in my future, haha!
I just ordered another one– that makes 3 for me and I really could use a couple more! It is organized and easy to cart around to different rooms since we never do “school” in one place. 🙂
I’ve never heard of Thirty-One Totes before. I accessed the link you kindly provided (thank you) ,but I was wondering, do the totes from 31 come with the file folder insert? I love love love this idea and I really like that tote, but don’t know anything about them.
Thank you
Thirty One does sell an insert (I forgot what it is called) but it does not come with the bag. I prefer to get the hard plastic inserts (shown above) from either Amazon or the container store.
Which tote is this? Thank you!