One of the keys to keeping my classroom running successfully is having so much independent work stored that we could never get through all of it. You never know when your schedule is going to get off and you will need to fill time with meaningful activities. In comes this beauty.
I bought a rainbow 8 drawer organizer from HomeGoods last summer. Here is a similar style from Amazon. I placed it in my independent workstation and assigned one drawer to each student. I keep the drawers stocked with 2-3 activities. This is not scheduled in the weekly plan. This is more of the emergency center for when we need it.
What I like about this drawer system is the drawers come out. Students can pull their bin to a separate table and work. It makes it easy for us to space out in the classroom. I love using smaller baskets to hold file folder and task box pieces. You can find great sets here and here. See below to see what kind of activities I store in this emergency center.
This student has emotion file folders from The Autism Helper, Dollar Up Books from The Autism Vault and Fraction File Folders from a Carson Dellosa Set.
This student has color file folders from My Special Learners, errorless file folders from Adaptation Station (that’s me!) and alphabet task boxes from Especially Education.
This student has sequencing books from The Bender Bunch, reading skills from My Special Learners and Time File Folders from a Carson Delosa Set.
This student has the same errorless file folders, the errorless adapted books from Adaptation Station (that’s me!) and puzzles. I love to get puzzles from the Target dollar spot, but here is a good set as well.
This student has the color sorting file folders from The Designer Teacher, sorting file folders from Spedtacular Days and the graphing file folder from Adaptation Station (that’s me!).
This student has the alphabet sorting board from the Alphabet Centers from Adaptation Station (that’s me!) and the same sequencing books.
This student has number task cards from Especially Education, CVC books from Teaching Special Thinkers and the same sorting file folders.
I hope this gives you a good place to start if you want to implement something similar in your classroom!