This week we are going to talk about how important it is to have a place for EVERYTHING! Literally everything that comes into your classroom needs a landing place…otherwise you will grow lots of piles! I like to have a bin, basket, tray, drawer, cabinet for everything. Not only does this help to avoid stuff everywhere, but it also allows you to save time. Instead of searching for 20 minutes during your prep for a book or a paper, it is right where it belongs ready to go!
Papers
When it comes to papers, we all know that it is nearly impossible to keep up! It is so hard to maintain reasonable paper piles without them going out of control. My solution for this is to have a home for every paper. I try….key word is try…to follow my own rules here. I have a variety of different bins to help wage the war on paper. Here are just a few of them:
-To Be Copied
-To Be Graded
-To Be Filed
-Finished Work (turn in bin)
-Finished Homework (turn in bin)
-Extra Copies Bin
-Daily Bins (Monday-Friday) to hold the days copies
-Subject bins (to hold future weeks’ copies by subject)
-Notes from Home Bin (for students’ notes)
-Unfinished Work Bin
By having a bin for every paper that comes in, it helps me to alleviate the piles. I am not perfect, so I do get piles from times to time, but I find that having a place for each type of paper helps. If I start to pile, I make sure to put those items away at the end of the week before I go home on Friday. I also train my students to put their papers away accordingly.
Student Folders
I hate messy desks and I hate when I ask my sudents to take out a paper we started the day before and they can’t find it! To alleviate this problem, my students have labeled 8 pocket folders that they keep in their desk. I label the pockets before the first day of school with printable address labels. you can get these free in our Free Resource Library. I include the following:
-Morning Work
-Reading
-Math
-Science
-Social Studies
-Other
My students have separate writing folder because I like that to be more portable. Every time we stop a lesson and the students are unfinished I simply say, “Please put your paper in the reading part of your 8 pocket folder.” This keeps up (mostly) organized and helps with being able to find their work the next day.
Bins, Baskets, and Trays
Students are also responsible for putting away their own finished work, homework, notes from home, etc. They know where to go to find an extra copy of something they might have misplaced or missed.
My daily bins are also great because I have a copy parent who comes in once a week to make our copies. When she finishes, I can just sort out which days I am going to you each set of copies and place them in the correct bin. This helps immensely when you have an unexpected substitute. You can put in your plans that everything needed for the day should be in the Orange “Wednesday” bin. It helps so much with organization.
As you are going through your room, really be realistic. If you don’t need something, or if you haven’t used it in a long time (or ever), feel free to get rid of it. You will feel like a weight has been lifted and it will be really exciting when someone asks to borrow something on the fly and you can find it right away!
I have some organizational freebies to help you get started. I have an Items to Purge checklist you can download here. I also have an Organization Location Checklist and FREE printable labels, you can download here. If you would like my subject labels for your students folders, you can grab them in our free resources library here.
If you missed Week 1 of our Organization Series, you can check it out here.
Sending Organization Vibes,
Heather & Stefanie
