7 Uses for Colored Dot Stickers

Teachers are always looking for inexpensive and effective ways to organize their classrooms. Take a minute to check out these simple ideas for using colored dot stickers to make your life a little easier.
I feel like everyone has heard of using these cheap little circles to organize their classroom library. But there are SOOOOO many other ways to use them even if you're like me and don't have a dedicated class book collection.

IDEA #1: "RANDOM-ISH" STUDENT SELECTION

I use Popsicle sticks in my class to call on random non-volunteers. Unfortunately, many times I end up drawing the same stick over and over and over again. And while I want students to know they aren't "off the hook" after one response, I also want to hear from more students in the room. The other day I used red and green dot stickers to label the ends of each of my Popsicle sticks.

I put the sticks into a container at the beginning of class with the green dots facing up. As I pull student sticks, I return them to the cup with the red dot facing up. When I pull sticks I can pull from students who have not answered at all (green dots) or ones who have had the opportunity already (red dots). When and why are up to me (or you if you try this in your class).

IDEA #2: THE NEVER-ENDING PENCIL PROBLEM

As a rule, I don't supply pencils to my fifth graders after the first couple weeks of school. As the highest grade level in the building, I feel I need to help students learn responsibility so they are better prepared for middle school. However, so many teachers at various grade levels struggle with the problem of students not having pencils when they need them. A quick way to label pencils for each table group is to put colored dot stickers on the supply bin and the pencils. This way students can easily identify pencils that belong to their group when they are found on the ground, outside, in the hallway, under books, on a shelf, and who knows where else...

IDEA #3: TABLE PLACEMENT

I'm a bit of a neat freak. Okay, a LOT of a neat freak. And one of my biggest pet peeves is when the tables in my classroom get shoved out of place throughout the day. Even with reminders, students struggle to place the tables back into the original location at the end of class. One day I had had enough and I stuck colored dot stickers on the floor in the exact spots where I wanted the table legs to go. It turned out to be really helpful because all I had to say was "pack your things and check your dots" and students knew what they were supposed to do.

IDEA #4: LEVELED GROUPING

Teachers at my school recently went through an in-depth course about Kagan grouping structures. While some of the information felt like common sense to me, I really liked the idea of assigning seats based on more than just behavior. It was suggested that each table group have students of varying ability. When I went back to my room to implement this type of seating arrangement, I found it tricky to keep track of the "highs, mediums, and lows", so I used index cards and colored dot stickers to code each student by ability.

I love the use of the stickers since I can visually see if I have students of mixed abilities in each group. Of course, there is a lot more to grouping students than just academic ability, but this gave me a great start.

IDEA #5: HOMEROOM IDENTIFICATION

I teach four classes each day. One way I keep track of who is in which class is by using a specific color for each homeroom. The color corresponds to their folders, notebooks, agendas, and supply bins. Since so many parents do school supply shopping ahead of time, I hate to send them to the store AGAIN to find the exact color of composition notebook to fit my needs.

If a student does not have the specified color, I simply pop a colored dot sticker on the front of their notebook so when I am collecting them I can easily determine which class they belong to. Agendas all look alike, so adding a colored dot sticker to each one helps everyone identify which classroom a lost agenda should be returned to instead of hunting a specific student down.

IDEA #6: DIFFERENTIATING CENTER ACTIVITIES

I keep most of my center games, review pages, exploration materials, and partner tasks in plastic envelopes. I use colored dot stickers to identify the specific content area each activity best addresses. For example, my Fraction Uno Game focuses on equivalent fractions and simplifying fractions, so it has a red colored dot on it to indicate fractions. My Tangram Review Puzzles involve operations with various whole number, decimal numbers AND fractions so I have a blue colored dot for basic operations AND a red colored dot for fractions. Sometimes I have several worksheets set aside for specific skill practice. After meeting with me earlier in the week, I identify areas of need for each student and give them a choice of "colors" to choose from. Students are then able to select activities during independent practice as long as they have the color coded skill on them.

IDEA #7: NOTEBOOK DIVIDERS

I use them in my lesson plan book (aka spiral notebook with random ideas jotted down everywhere) to separate each nine weeks. It's a small thing, but sure helps me to find what I may have written down right before the holiday break that I needed to remember. I've also used them in student notebooks to mark the beginning of a new unit of study. This helps them flip straight to that section when needed. They would also be great for marking pages in a journal that need to be graded - super quick to open to the right page with an orange dot on the edge.

Think you'll need WAY more than one little package of four colors to get your classroom organized the way you'd like? Shop online at Amazon (my all-time favorite supplier of all things) where they have so many size, color, and quantity options! These ones are my favorite set...

 

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Looking for even MORE ways to use these little stickers in your classroom? Read about how I use them to organize and manage supplies and data during science class here.