This has become an invaluable tool in my classroom. So often my students come up and say, "hey can you look up fire for me? I want to know what it looks like." Well sure I could but I have about a hundred other kids that want to look up pictures on my computer too. I only have one computer in my room, it's mine, as most teachers do. So to solve this issue I created a picture filing system this year.
It's separated by category. I had my TAs go through my magazines and cut out pictures of places, people, things, flowers, plants, animals, etc and just general pictures they thought were cool and would like to draw. Some teachers don't like the picture reference stuff, but I find at the middle school age, they have need a reference or their stuff can look, shall I say...lackluster.
So after cutting out a bunch of pictures, the TAs glued them to regular pieces of paper and then I laminated them. If you don't have teacher assistants, it takes longer, but so worth it. I'm adding to this all the time. Now kids can go look through there when they want. Sigh, my computer is mine again.
