Clotheslines in the classroom

I have often used a clothesline in my classroom as a special workstation.  I am careful NOT to use it too much; I want to keep it special for the students.  When they would come into my class and see it hanging, the students would get so excited!  One thing I have noticed, especially with the older students, is they remember what we have done, and how often we have done it and if I put something out too often they do not choose it unless it is a "MUST DO" workstation.  My Kindergarten class last year was not happy repeating the same file folder games more than twice.  The clothesline is a fun way of changing up an activity while using the same base materials.  What the students do not realize is that they are also working on strengthening their hand muscles, to make them better writers.

Here are some pics from my clothesline:

These Kindergarteners are matching sweaters to pants.  The pants have a number on the leg; the sweaters have dots.  They count the dots and match it to the pants with that number!  Sometimes they hang them next to each other, sometimes they attach them together; it's up to the student.  I have this set up to the number 20; higher than that and I could not fit the spots on the sweater.  If I had a smaller circle punch I would have made from 20-30.  This idea and patterns came from Mailbox, I believe.

Other ways I have used the number line (which apparently I do not have any pictures of) is matching mittens; ordering numerals; making patterns.  Before I left my job I went through all the pictures we had online and tried to find as many examples of my work as I could.  Unfortunately I did not have access to all of the pictures, so I am missing quite a bit.

Maybe my next product will be a clothesline set!

Have a great day!  Kathy