Fun With File Folders

File folder games are a staple in my classroom.  They are great tasks for the kids to do on their own, they're easy to store and you can teach any number of skills using them.  I keep mine organized in this handy-dandy colour-coded cart that I bought at Michael's.  Each colour has a certain type of activity, and each file folder activity has a corresponding sticker so it's easy to return it to it's home and to find one that you're looking for.

To make these activities, I don't actually use file folders.  I use regular cardstock that I can put through my laminator (the best $20 that I ever spent!) and then tape them together.  Most of the activities, I create myself, but I did purchase two books of file folder games because they were fairly inexpensive to purchase and were a nice change to all of the hand-made ones.


I bought these 2 for about $16 each from Amazon (I know other teacher stores sell them for much more) and they were well worth the price.  There is a lot of assembly required (lots of work for my trusty laminator) but they turned out great in the end.

I downloaded a few games from File Folder Fun (http://www.filefolderfun.com/FileFolderGames.html) and borrowed some of their ideas to make my own. 


Size Activities

Some of the easiest activities to make are ones for size matching.  Find an image that you like online (I like to find black outline images and then I just colour them on my own) and resize it a bunch of times.  Print of two sets, one to make the background, and then colour the second set.  These become your matching pieces.

   

Colour Activities

Colour matching activities are also easy to make and you can create them for any area of interest. Most of these I made by just finding pictures I liked online, printing them off and colouring.  I had some grade 6 students at school help with some of the colouring.

 

 

To mix things up a little, I made some matching ones with coloured popsicle sticks.

 

Paint chips can also make great file folder games.  These ones are a little trickier because they need to look at the different shades.



Picture Matching

Picture matching file folder activities are my new favourites to make.  Memory games and flashcards (preferably found at the dollar store!) are a great find - one deck can make 4 file folder games.  Usually I will cut half of the cards in half vertically and the other half horizontally.  For larger pictures, they can be cut into more pieces.

 

 

  



This one I made out of wall stickers I found at the dollar store.  For these ones they are matching the coloured stickers to the black and white photocopied images.



Or this one uses some different animal shapes I found in the classroom.  They are matching to the black shadow of each piece.



Sorting Activities

Library pockets are perfect pouches for sorting different pieces.  This is one type of file folder that doesn't always need Velcro!

 



I found these transportation erasers at the dollar store and made the sorting board for them.



 Letter/Text Matching Activities

We had an old alphabet bingo game in the classroom, which I cut up to make a variety of different letter matching activities.

 

The "Alphabetanimals" font (found at http://alphabetimals.com/en/) is great for students who are just beginning to look at print and text.  The bright coloured animal shapes are visually appealing and "trick" the students into matching the letters.  I printed off a sheet of the letters in colour and then photocopied it so that the students are matching to the black and white images.



Here is a lower and upper case matching activity.  For the letter pairs that don't look the same I've written in the correct letter with the dry erase marker, and as the students learn the pairs, they can be wiped off.



Here is an environmental print matching activity made from packages from the kids' lunches.



I have a lot of Thomas lovers in my class, so this is a Thomas characters name matching activity.  I found these images at http://www.oncoloring.com/thomas-and-friends-coloring-pages.html



I have also turned worksheets from activity workbooks into "file folder games".  Rather than having the students write the answers on the paper, I made game pieces out of counters that they can stick into the correct spot.



Number Activities

I also had an old number bingo game which I cut apart to make different activities.



An old knock-off Uno game and number flashcards made some great pocket activities.  For the first one, the numbers are written on in dry erase marker so that some of them can be wiped off as the students become more familiar with the numbers and their order.

 

I made the following games with images I found online.  I added stickers to be the items to be counted.  For this one, the students are matching the numbers and the correct number of sprinkles.



For the next two, there are a few options.  The students will need to count the stickers on each piece for all options.  They will either need to put the correct number under the picture, the correct picture over the number, or find pairs and stick them to the folder.  All of the pieces are removable which allows for the variations in the activity, and for the numbers to be moved around the game so that they aren't just memorizing the location of each piece.

 

This is just another matching activity with different counters I had at school.



Here is a counting one.



There are also lots of great worksheets that you can turn into math file folder activities.




Miscellaneous Activities

This one is a design matching.  I printed off an image I liked and then drew different patterns on each one.  I coloured one copy and used the black and white image for the file folder.



I found this patterning game at a children's thrift store.  I just added some Velcro pieces (the cards were already laminated pretty thickly) so that the pieces would stay in place.



I found some cheap, small puzzles at the dollar store.  I mounted them on laminated sheets and added some Velcro to the back of each piece.




So these are some of the different types of file folder activities I have in my classroom.  I hope that they give you some ideas!  If you have any others, please share them with me - I'm always looking for more!

Setting the Mood: My Classroom Set-Up

When I found out I was getting this class (one for primary students with Autism), I was ecstatic.  It would mean that I would get to return to the type of class that I wanted, but I would also get this class without having to leave my school - the best of both worlds.  It also meant that I would be starting from scratch because it was a new program at our school.  This meant I was starting with nothing.  On the plus side, starting with nothing, I could set up and create the environment and program exactly as I wanted.  The negatives?  I had nothing.  Thankfully because it had previously been a different type of special education class, there was some furniture that was useful, and by some miracle, we had exactly the type of tables I had envisioned being unused in the basement.  The teacher who had the room before the year before me was also extremely organized and had purged most of the things that had been hoarded in the room since the 70s.  What was left we went through together and whatever I didn't want, we pitched.  This meant that I had an organized, clean-slate to set up my classroom with, and this is the end result:

"The Circle"
This is where we do calendar every morning and music and story time every afternoon.

The Quiet/Play Area
Here the kids can relax on the pillows or take a break on the balls.  They can read books or play with some of the small toys in the bins. 

The "Big Table"
This is where we do puzzles in the morning, eat, and do our afternoon table activities.  The two rainbow tables were not useful to our setup on their own, but making them into a giant circle has worked really well.  It creates enough space between each student (defined by the table legs) so that they can all sit there together but are far enough apart to have their own space, but close enough together that we can keep an eye on each student.

Desk Work/Teacher Work
The students have been "paired" based on how well the attention of the teacher/EA can be shared between the two.  The partners share an "office" where they do their independent work and the table where they do their teacher work.  There are two work periods in the morning, so one student works in their office independently while the other works with the teacher.  In the second work period they switch.  Each student also has their own set of drawers where activities that they are currently working on with the teacher can be stored and easily accessed.

Welcome!

Hi Everyone!

I am a special education teacher currently teaching a class for students with Autism.  Pinterest and other blogs have been my greatest resources for setting up and creating activities for my classroom on a limited budget. Some of the activities that are the cheapest to make are the ones that my kiddos enjoy doing the most.  Perusing the many dollar stores in town is one of my favourite pass-times.  Discovering a new dollar store will make my week, discovering that a Dollar Tree is opening up next to my grocery store?  Well that'll last me right up to next September! And then there's the thrift stores, and garage sale season is starting...

I have found so many great ideas online that I have copied/borrowed and adapted, and I hope that my fellow teachers or mothers of little ones will find useful.  I'm always looking for that "I-think-I-can-make-that-myself" moment.  Most of the activities in my classroom have been made by hand, and they're pretty easy to do as long as you've got some time to get crafty.  The two most important items in my classroom-creating toolbelt?  Velcro and laminating sheets (I should by shares in the stuff, I use it so often!)

I hope you find some of what I post useful, and please share with me any ideas that you have - I'm always looking for new ideas!

Meghan