These two supplies have been essential and we've used them at least a few times per week.  Sure, it takes a week or two for students to get the RIGHT notebook (even with being specific, people still brought in the wrong size of notebook) and sometimes kids don't have their glue sticks, but they figure it out.  Keep checking supplies the first two weeks of schools and reminding students they need to get these!

Classroom Setup
I encourage students to keep their notebooks at school and provide study materials online in place of their notebooks.  This way, they always have their notebooks when they need them.  So. I needed a storage system that allowed easy access to the notebooks but wouldn't create a mess.  I am also using personal white-boards this year, so whatever I figured out had to store them, too.  My solution came in the form of the plastic hanging file folder boxes - they were perfectly sized to fit the white boards AND the notebooks for all of my periods!  Keep in mind, I have my desks in groups of four, so with three periods of Beginning Spanish I had to fit 5 white boards (I always keep an extra), an eraser or two, and 12 notebooks.  The crates are quite big to put on the desks - I have them sit on the floor next to the group, but out of any traffic.  The system is working beautifully - I can quickly move everything out of the way if needed, students have quick access to everything that they need, and there's minimal mess as students *attempt* to keep their basket semi-organized.

Notebook Setup
Rather than taking a day to set up notebooks, we did it as we went.  On the first day of school, I had students number their notebook to page 20 as soon as they walked in to the class and then start doing the warm-up on page 4.  The students without notebooks simply completed the activity on a separate sheet of paper, but were also put on notice that they NEED their notebooks!  For homework, students had to number the rest of their pages by the end of the week.  On the third day of school, we were working on pages 21-24, so students who had not yet numbered their pages quickly did so through the pages we needed and continued working.  Nearly everyone had their pages numbered by Friday, when we did a culture activity on page 153.  We added section dividers (Vocabulary and Culture) as we used them rather than all at once.  It worked out well and didn't use up a lot of time.

Students glued in pages as we talked about them - I handed out the syllabus in half-sheet form toward the end of the week since most students had their notebooks by then (I posted the syllabus online as well so most parents had already read and sent in the signature page by Friday).  Plus, we'd already gone over most of the information throughout the week, so students didn't need to sit and read the syllabus - they just needed to put it in their notebooks.  I think I will do this a little earlier in the future (probably mid-week) so we don't' just forget about the syllabus in their notebook.

During Teaching
When I hand out a worksheet, I first tell students which page it goes on (and how to glue it in if it's a foldable) and what to title the page.  Then, as I'm handing out the paper, students are already gluing the paper into their notebooks and are looking over it.  The entire glue-in process takes about 2 minutes and students are very good about sharing glue sticks when needed.  For other notes, I simply tell them which page to take notes on and begin.  Students are very good now about asking which page they need to put information on (and getting better at looking at the board to see which page) - they know information can't go just "anywhere"

Keeping Notebooks Updated
I do a notebook check about once every 2-3 weeks.  Basically, I wait until there is enough new information since the last check to merit a new check.  I may throw on a few items from previous notebook checks that I notice aren't completely done and then check every new item we've added that students should have completed.   I also do not check the notebooks myself - I give students a simple rubric and they check one another's notebooks, then turn in the rubric to me!  They are pretty honest and very quick about completing these notebook checks - usually I can have my fastest quiz/test-takers check all the notebooks by the time the entire class is done with the test.  Other times, I just have them swap notebooks and the whole process is done within 3-4 minutes.

In order to facilitate keeping the notebooks updated, I update a Google Doc with the pages students should have, pictures of what the completed pages look like (courtesy of an excellent student's notebook), and links to any hand outs that students may need to print out.  Absent students can check the online notebook to get their notebooks caught up AND students can check the notebook at home if they feel the need to look at the notes.  It all works nicely as long as I do my part to keep it all updated!

*****

In summary, I'm very pleased with how the notebooks worked out this year.  I know we will continue to use them consistently throughout the year (which hasn't happened in the past) as we use them basically every day.  I don't use them in my higher classes at the moment, but they are definitely a valuable resource for my middle school students still learning to organize materials and who must have ready access to their notes.