The Basics

To get started using Fairview with your students they are going to need a few things. Having one central place in the classroom for all of the Fairview materials is helpful, but not necessary. This is our Fairview area of the classroom.  (The bulletin board above our boxes is actually my Literature board and the work displayed there changes with each new Literature book.)

First off, every student needs a binder to store all of their papers, and to keep the students organized. My students store their binders on the bookshelf so they are easy to find. The students carry their binders with them (and a pencil) to every rotation.

I added five-tabbed dividers to the binder for each Fairview rotation that the students visit.  There are tabs for Reading, Adapted Dolch Sight Words, Bridge Words (The younger students have a Bridge Word section, but do not yet visit Bridge), ASL Stories and Writing.  I'll show you what's in each section as we come to it.

The other necessities are a small 3x5 card box for reading vocabulary words and a larger 5x8 card box for Adapted Doch words. 

I used a big chunk of my classroom budget at the beginning of the school year to invest in these boxes and binders.  However, they are really sturdy and we will be able to re-use them year after year. Office Depot had the best prices for the larger 5x8 boxes and I found the little 3x5 boxes at.  I added the student names to the top and side of  each box so they would be easy to find.

When the students visit the Adapted Dolch Word rotation they know to bring their large box with them.  When they come to reading, they know to bring their small reading vocabulary box.

So a binder, large 5x8 card file box, and a smaller 3x5 card file box are the supplies your students will need to get started. Of course, you're going to need a large supply of the cards as well!