Sticky note binder tabs!

Hi everyone! It's my last day of vacation (sniff!) and I've been organizing my student binders for Reader's and Writer's Workshop (more to come on those binders soon!).

Anyhow, I was a little stuck because I have had several new students arrive in the past couple of weeks and had also run out of binder dividers.

And I am not leaving the comfort of my pajamas on my last day of vacation to go get new ones!

So I started thinking. I don't really love those binder tabs anyhow...I don't even use them for my own teacher binder--I made my own tabs with larger fonts I could see more easily.

I thought this would be ideal for my students too. But to make it even easier and less time consuming (my tabs were laminated, but that was back in those happy days of summer) I decided to call on some old friends, my sticky notes. And packaging tape. Really the perfect blend of teacher supplies...well, almost...I would need my laminator to make that true! Ha ha!

Anyhow, this is what I did...

1. Made a quick template for the sticky notes in Powerpoint (I'll explain why in a moment)...

(They have lines down the middle, so I can cut the sticky note in half).

Then I put all of my sticky notes onto this template. All sticky notes are placed with the sticky part at the top of each box, that way they can be fed through the printer sticky-side first and not fall off.

Then, I went back to the Powerpoint and typed in the names of the binder sections I wanted and flipped them upside down (this is why I used Powerpoint, because it's so easy to rotate the text). I had to put make the text upside down because, when I stick the note onto the paper, the sticky side will go first....you can see more about I mean a few pics below).

Before I printed this page out, I removed those boxes with the lines from the Powerpoint slide, so only the text would show up, like so...

I cut the sticky in half and placed it on the page where I wanted the tab...

Then I made a fold at the top of the tab...


...and folded it back.

Next, I took a piece of packaging tape and taped from the bottom of the sticky note...


...and up over to the back part, so all parts of the sticky were protected with tape (to make it last--hopefully!).

The last thing I did was cut off the tiny bits of excess on the tab itself.

It was actually very easy to do and I like how they are easy to see, size-wise for my students. I also prefer this much more than typing on those tiny white pieces of cardstock that come with store-bought tabs, only to have them fall out later in the year!

As I mentioned above, I plan on sharing more about our Reader's and Writer's Workshop binders in the coming weeks. I have found some things that have worked really well with my class and I am eager to share them with you. In the meantime, I hope this is something others might like to try!

I've uploaded the Powerpoint file below left in ppt form, so you can adapt as need be. Is this something you might try when organizing a binder? I would love to hear if so! I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend :)



Sticky Note Binder Tabs template (.ppt)