Too Many Anchor Charts!

Have you ever looked around your classroom and wondered where in the world you were going to hang another anchor chart?  I have! There's only so much space in the classroom.  Let me first say, I don't believe a classroom should be papered with anchor charts.  When you have too many up, they sort of lose their meaning.  Your little friends stop really seeing them.  They just blend after a while.  This is why I like to keep them up for a while and then rotate them out.  I also keep my anchor charts posted in the same spot in my room so my friends' little eyes always know where to look for that information.

The problem is the skills we teach on those anchor charts can never be put away.  They're skills we want out friends to keep using all year long, and sometimes they do need a reminder.  That's where my anchor chart binder comes in handy.

This binder stores a picture of most of the anchor charts we make.  Before I tell you how I set it up, let me tell you why I love it.

1. It keeps my anchor charts available all year long.
2. It's handy for my friends.  They know where it is and know how to use it.
3. It's a great reminder for me for the next year.  I am a believer in making 90% of my charts with the class.  I may set up the title and clip art or graphic I want on it, but the content is generated with my friends.  Of course, I know what must make the chart, but you would be surprised at the different things that come up each year with different classes that we end up adding.
4. It's a great resource to use with my small group and individual student meetings to target specific needs.

Here's how it's set up.  There are three sections in this binder.  The first is reading, the second writing, and the third is miscellaneous.  I try to keep only true instructional or reference type anchor charts in the reading and writing sections with any other literacy charts in the misc. section.

It starts out with an index in the front, behind the divider tab.  The anchor chart index lists the date I gave out the chart, the title of the chart, and the page number. The charts are in clear plastic sleeves, so I just put a small sticker on the bottom corner with the page number.

Now, this might seem like a lot of work, but it really isn't.  I always have my small point and shoot camera in my pocketbook.  About once a week after school, I take a quick look around my room and shoot some pictures.  If I have time in school, I download them and send them to our school printer.  If not, I do it at home.  It really is just that simple.  Here are some pictures of the reading anchor charts I have posted about before in the binder.

I only print out one color picture, but I make a few black and white copies which I stick in the sleeve behind the color picture.  This is when the binder comes in handy when I'm meeting with my friends.  If a friend is having trouble with a particular skill or strategy, as the year goes on I can usually find the appropriate chart in this binder, give a quick refresher lesson, and then send them off with a copy of it for their personal reference.

That's how I keep track of my anchor charts.  I don't really have room to store tons of charts, and as I wrote earlier , I like to create them with my students.  This has been a great way to manage the charts.  If you have another method that's working for you, I would love to hear about it.  :-)

UPDATE!

Wow! Your response to my little binder has been amazing!  Thanks so much!  I love that so many of you found this idea helpful.  A few people have asked it I could share the cover page.  I wish I could but I didn't save it.  It would be so easy to make your own, though.  I just typed the title in a word doc.  Then, I just played with changing the fonts and font sizes to make it look the way it does.  For the picture, I just Googled images with key words like confused, questions, etc. until I found a picture I liked.  Then, I copied and pasted it in.  The orange is just magic marker I used to color in the letters. Finally, since it is just a word doc printed on regular paper, I put a piece of orange construction paper behind it.  It really is easy to do.  The great thing is you can design it to look anyway you want yours to look.  I did save the anchor chart index page that goes in the front of each section, so I'm happy to share that.  Here is the link for it: Anchor Chart Index Page.  So, have some fun making your binder!