I have a little girl in my class who is likely one of the most organized, responsible students I've ever had.  I adore this child.  She is so unlike me.  She loves to file.  She loves to sort papers.  She loves to grade multiplication tests.  If she weren't 10 years old, I'd  hire her as my personal secretary.  So it isn't surprising that she came to school on Day One with the coolest, most enormous binder: all tabbed and ready to fill with notes, assignments, and projects.  That she had the most organized pencil box wasn't surprising either.  But sadly for her, I don't allow pencil boxes on desks.  I find them too distracting for most of my kids.  God only knows what lurks under those plastic covers that keeps my students' attention anywhere but on the lesson I'm teaching.  Whatever it is, it's powerful!  So my rule has always been:  you can have them, but keep them in your backpack.  This little girl was clearly disappointed.  

I'm not really sure when it happened, but by the end of Week One, I noticed her pencil box sat boldly on her desk.  I let it slide.  She never seemed to touch it. No harm, no foul if it wasn't causing an issue.  By the end of Week Two, that pencil box had reproduced itself and now I spied a double-decker pencil box...a highrise of sorts sprouting up on the corner of her desk.  I didn't mind.  If someone at Group 2, or even a neighboring group needed some sort of writing utensil, they knew who to ask.  That corner of the room was her region and she kept it well supplied.  Sometime during Week Three, the double-decker pencil box was replaced by a large colorful cup, let's call it a bucket, that she used to hold her set of highlighters, her sticky tabs, assorted pencils, red revising pens, and blue editing pens.  Again, not a distraction so I decided not to say anything.  

Today when I left school, I noticed this in place of the colorful bucket:

I couldn't help but laugh, but you know I'm watching her and I'm waiting.  Next week she'll probably have a file cabinet set up next to her desk.  Then it's only a matter of time before I come in to school some morning and find my teacher's desk newly situated in Group 2 and the keys to Room 24 dangling around her neck.