How to Pack the Best Teacher’s Bag

Have you been wondering how to pack the best teacher’s bag because your life seems to be disorganized? Do you ever get where you have to be and realize that you forgot something? You left your grade book in your classroom or that workbook that you needed on your shelf at home. Are you a sub teacher and you show up to the class a realize that the teacher left you no lesson plans or very few plans that will not take up the whole time you have with the students that day? Did your tutoring student finish the lesson plan you prepared way faster than you expected?

This is when what you have packed in your teaching tote becomes super important. You should have enough supplies for the day, lesson, or school year to make sure you are prepared for anything that students will throw at you. Below are some of the things that I always make sure that I have with me.

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A Bag 

So the first thing that you need is a bag to actually hold everything. There are many different bags that you can use for this. I have found that an actual tote over my shoulder is too heavy and for some reason also doesn’t hold everything that I find myself needing. I opt instead for a portable file folder. I can carry this in my hand with the handle it has and for some reason, it doesn’t end up feeling as heavy as a tote over my shoulder. It also holds everything that I need for any given day.

Folders with Worksheets

The first thing that you definitely need in your tote is folders with worksheets. I have worksheets printed ahead of time for all the grades that I might be teaching or tutoring in a given week. This way if I have extra time or if the students don’t have homework to go over, then I can pull out one of these worksheets and do it with them. I always keep reading and math worksheets for every grade. 

To figure out where to find worksheets you can head over to my resources tab. Some of my personal favorites are listed below. I also have started putting together my own worksheets my first one is on essay writing and is also featured below

K-5 Learning 

Common Core Sheets 

Kuta Software

Essay Worksheet 

I usually keep these in separate folders labeled with the grade. If you are a substitute, these worksheets work well as emergency lessons if you don’t have to power to make copies try to find the document projector and the kids can do them with you on their own paper.

Lined paper

I don’t know if you have this problem, but plenty of my students do not have lined paper with them when they come to tutoring. Therefore, if they need scratch paper for something, or if the lesson I have prepared involves them writing an essay or anything really where they need paper they don’t have it.

If I don’t have it then my whole lesson is thrown off-kilter. I may have to ask someone else for paper or hope that one of my other students has some for the students that don’t have any. Overall, this is just something I need to have with me so that my students have it when they need it.

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Pencils, Pens, Markers, Colored Pencils

Kind of like lined paper sometimes my students do not have a pencil or a pen with them. Therefore, I need to always remember to have pencils and pens with me. This is also helpful for me because I need a pencil or pen to correct items on a student’s papers when I am going over things with them.

Likewise, you also need coloring elements. Sometimes students have projects which they need to make colorful. Sometimes the lesson I have for them involves them using colors to denote certain things. Sometimes, I have them to draw a picture to go along with the reading we have been doing. This means that I need markers or colored pencils, and this is not usually something that students would bring with them.

My favorite markers are Crayola Super Tips you can get a set of 50 that have pretty much every color you can think of. For pens, personal favorites are Paper Mate Ink Joy pens any of them are amazing but the gel pens are particularly amazing. 

Mini Dry Erase Board and Markers

This is literally a lifesaver. I used to tutor at a center that had whiteboards, and when we lost our lease we have to move to tutoring at the library. I also started tutoring in people’s homes. So I lost the ability to have a big whiteboard, and I don’t want to carry around a medium-sized one. Enter the mini whiteboard. This is a lifesaver because I can still model the problem that I am working on. I can also have students use the board to do different activities or problems. It is great.

If you have a dry erase board you also need dry erase markers. These can be helpful for a substitute teacher as well if you somehow can’t find the dry erase markers in class. Having several markers, in case one decides to die on you, is very important also.

Lastly, make sure you have an eraser for your board. I don’t know how many times students ended up giving me paper towels because I did not have an eraser with me. Learn from my mistakes and get an eraser.

Dice 

Dice are the best for a quick math game. You can come up with so many games to do with a simple set of dice. I would suggest that you have a couple of six-sided dice and a couple 12 sided dice. These will get you through most of the basic math that elementary schoolers are doing.

If you want a specific dice game. I would suggest Math Dice, They have three versions, Math Dice Jr, Math Dice, and Math Dice Chase. All of these are good games in themselves and together you would have any type of dice that you might need.

Story Cubes

One of the last products I like to have in my teaching tote is Rory’s Story Cubes. These are a set of nine six-sided dice and they have pictures on each of the sides. There are a couple of ways that you can use them to improve creativity, writing, and/or speaking skills. You can put students in groups if you have multiple students and each group gets a certain amount of dice they then have to roll the dice and make up a story with the pictures that are on the dice. One group can go and talk for a couple of minutes. Then the next group could roll the dice and they have to continue the story using the pictures on their dice.

You can also have one dice per student. They have to roll it and start their story using those pictures. After about a minute, they have to roll the dice again and add the new picture into their story. It makes for a creative story in the end. You may even have students read their stories after the exercise is over. This would be perfect for tutors as an activity or for substitutes to fill in when they find they have either finished the lesson plans and have more time or when they find they were not given lesson plans.

What’s Your List?

This is by no means an exhaustive list of things that one should have in their teaching tote. These are just the things that I find most helpful for my day-to-day tutoring when I am going from place to place.

Please comment below with the things that you can’t live without for your teaching tote that way we can help out fellow educators know what they need to pack.

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