Classroom Organization

Thanks for checking out my classroom organization page! One of my passions in life is to organize and maintain organization. One day I would love to have an organization business (like The Amandas). I do not know if I have OCD or if I am just strange, but I have to have everything in a certain, organized manner in order to function. If things are not organized, I find it hard to concentrate on anything because I am thinking how I need to organize and clean lol. Anyway, I am in the process of redecorating my classroom to an animal print theme. I am constantly changing things around until I feel that "feng shui" feeling. In my last school, this took me four years to achieve! (Let's hope it doesn't take as long this time haha.)

Below, you will see a picture of the wall behind my desk. I found that animal print tablecloth at Walmart for 99 cents! It was much cheaper than buying border and quicker and easier than putting up paper with a border around it.

Underneath the tablecloth, you will see several clipboards hanging from the wall. (They are hanging from thumbtacks of matching color.) Each clipboard has forms that I use on a daily basis. For instance, the first clipboard (orange) has my school nurse forms on it. The next clipboard has our parent notification forms for when a student has misbehaved. The third clipboard has my parent contact sheets on them. (When I complete a page, it gets filed in my teacher binder. More on that later.) The fourth clipboard holds the calendar for the school year. The fifth clipboard holds my parent volunteer forms so that I have their information handy when I need to contact them. The sixth clipboard has my positive behavior referral forms. These forms are part of our school-wide plan. We fill these out for students who go above and beyond just "being good" and they get to have a visit with the principal and tell him about their good deeds. The seventh clipboard has our dress code reminder. Our school has uniforms and when students are not in compliance, I have to send one of these home as a reminder.  The last clipboard holds extra copies of my weekly behavior sheets. I will write more about these when I add my Classroom Management page.  Anyway, these clipboards help me stay organized so that I am not rifling through papers or files. These pages are used on a regular basis and they are in a handy place.

Below my clipboards, you will see my crates.  These are milk crates (file boxes are kind of expensive, so I am still saving up to buy matching ones) that I have put file folders in. Personally, I prefer to have only one file folder inside each hanging folder. It makes it easier to find what I am looking for. The first two crates contain my files for our math curriculum.  At my school, we use Singapore Math. The first thing I did was I made a file for each lesson in the book. I labeled each folder with the chapter, lesson, and lesson title.  Then, I made a divider for each chapter. The dividers are made from animal print scrapbook paper.  I labeled each divider with a chapter (1-19) so that I could quickly and easily access the files when I needed them.  After the files were made, I ripped the pages out of every teacher guide for the Reteach, Extra Practice, and Assessment books. They were already three-hole punched, so I put each book in a binder and labeled the binder.  I find that ripping them out makes it easier to copy them.  I made a copy of each book so that I would have a full copy of the originals, in case one got misplaced for some reason.  Then, I simply filed each lesson into its folder.  I did the same thing with Reading Street, the core reading curriculum that we use.  However, instead of each lesson, I made a file for each story.  I also have a crate for Rocket Math, and next year I will have a crate for number bonds as well.

To the left of the crates, there are 5 multi-colored book holders that I got for free from participating in Highlights magazine.  (They will be replaced later with metal ones probably.) There is one for each day.  This is how I organize my materials for each day.  Inside each box, the materials I need are organized by order of use.

To the right of the crates and the microwave, there is a black paper holder.  This is where I store my "TO LAMINATE" and "TO MAKE" piles. I have parent volunteers that come in to help me, so this helps me stay organized and on top of the projects that I want their help with.

   

As I said in my blog, these mailboxes are covered with animal print duct tape.  I love the way this turned out. My kids think it is totally cool too.  I use these mailboxes to pass back student work such as homework, graded class work, and tests.  At the beginning of the year, each student received a number (in alphabetical order). I labeled the mailbox with their corresponding numbers and taught them which mailbox is theirs.  This saves me time so that I can be passing out homework while they go get their "mail".

Below the student mailboxes I have taken a picture of some of my math and reading manipulatives.  I am still searching for some cuter bins or baskets, so for now, I am storing the reading "stuff" in blue book bins and the math manipulatives are separated into green, yellow, purple, and red book bins, based on skill.  (Example: all of the green bins are related to shapes and counters. Orange would be anything under the measurement category (money, time, length, temperature, etc.).

These pictures are of my books that are separated by genre.  I used to have my books separated by lexile level because my old school took NWEA. However at my new school, we don't so the lexile level isn't relevant anymore. Besides this is a more efficient way to find a book quickly when I am looking for it.  Each genre is separated by a divider that I made out of scrapbook paper (animal print, of course!). To make these dividers I folded a piece of scrapbook paper in half.  Then I labeled it with the genre and laminated it for durability. (Another obsession of mine is laminating!)

Lastly, we have the question wall and the writing center.  As you can see, I have paper separated by type using some dividers that you can buy in the office section of any store. I have dictionaries here as well.  The really cool thing though (and the reason I included the picture) is to show you the cool Crayola Crayon cups I found at Walmart in the party section! These cups were only about 88 cents each, and I am using them to store my "lost crayons".  Each cup holds a different color of crayon, so whenever a student says they don't have a certain color, they can get one quickly and easily.

I have a ton more organization tips and advice to share, but I haven't taken pictures of all of it yet.

Stay tuned for more! :) Happy organizing!