Hi all!
I like to think of myself as being organized, but the truth is that I am not organized when it comes to paperwork. I am a logical, sequential thinker, but I tend to put papers into piles. When one pile gets high, I start another. Sad, very sad .. and definitely not organized.
But there are some areas of my classroom that are very organized:
1) My student drawers ...
I do not have cubbies, so I use these drawers from Costco. The drawers are numbered from 1-30. (In the past I only had 20 students, but now I have gone up to 26.) My students are numbered from 1 to 26. After I correct their work, it is placed in the correct drawer. Then homework folders are easy to stuff once a week with their finished and corrected work. (I am so blessed to have an amazing volunteer aide from the middle school next door; she spends about four hours a week helping me with this type of clerical work. I love her dearly and will be sad at the end of the semester when I lose her!!!)
2) Our classroom library ...
I have about 2,000 books in the classroom library. (The longer you teach, the more books you accumulate!!! In other words, I have been teaching a long time.) With that many books, I needed to create a system that would allow students to both find and put away books. I sorted books by topics and then put each topic into a different tub (example: weather). I have about 50 tubs. This photo shows just one section of tubs. Each tub was given a number and each book in that tub labeled with that number. My previous post has more information on this system. I also have a "book hospital" for books that need repair. My students place books there when they notice a rip (even if the rip is invisible to the naked eye).
Okay, now on to my goals for organizing ...
I will create an organization system for my paperwork. This will consist of:
1) A tub for papers I want to copy.
2) A tub for papers that need to be corrected.
3) A tub for papers that need to be sorted. NO MORE PILES!
I also want to create a better system for my stations that are supervised by parent volunteers. I plan to have five tubs (one per station) that I can label and prep ahead of time. No more scrambling around in the hours before dawn (not really, but you know what I mean).
Whew! If I keep these goals it will be a HUGE positive change for me!! Wish me luck!
For more tips on organizing, head on over to Second Grade Shenanigans.
Here is the link!
Love to all,
Camille
