Welcome back to Day 3 of this week Back to School linky party. Today is also the big TPT sale! I hope you were able to pick up some great new products to use in your classroom.
So today I'm going to talk about organization! The biggest thing that keeps me organized in my classroom are my BINDERS! I have created a few different style binders that I have for sale over at TPT that will keep your teacher files organized!
Here is a look at one of the binders I have available:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/All-in-One-Teacher-Personal-Organizational-Planner-in-Grey-Chevron-and-Pink-815631
I also have it available in teal, and grey/white to help you save ink!
This year, I also wanted to find a better way to incorporate my personal planning and teacher stuff onto the same calendar! I was constantly copying down the same meetings on my personal planner and in my teacher planner as well as important family dates, like soccer practice, family functions etc. Needless to say, I missed a couple of things here and there due to there just being too many events/meetings to keep track of! So, I created a TEACHER ALL IN ONE PLANNER! This planner includes monthly calendar pages because I like to see the month in full view. I also have a day by day page with times!!!!!! I added week by week planning pages to leave room for things to buy for recipes, and other personal errands and events. This way, I won't have to transfer from a personal planner to a teacher planner ever!
I have two different designs available:
As far as organizing my classroom materials, I store my Science Lab materials by unit. I use empty paper boxes and I created a label for all of the units that I have lab materials for.
I keep these hidden in my closet until it's time for that unit. When I'm using the unit, I just keep it on my back counter until I'm done with that unit. Here are some of the labels I've created for these units with the matching standard number that we use in Virginia:
For my science labs, I have 5-6 black bins that I assign to table groups. It takes a lot of time to set up the labs, but the labs run very smoothly and more time is spent on the activity.
For Math, I keep a different system. Since many of the manipulatives can be used in multiple units, I try and keep them all separated by type in bins and then just take them out when I need them.
The clear bins work well, because you can easily spot what is inside each one. For group work, I use the same system as Science Labs. I put all of the supplies in black bins and pass them out to table groups. For partner work, I usually just put the supplies on the back table and have the students pick up the needed supplies on their own.
To keep students organized, I create a J.U.N.G.L.E. book folder for each student. This folder is also really helpful for parents to keep up with school passwords for websites, lunch money/notes home, and important school information. I do not have this available for purchase yet, but it is a work in progress. Here is sneak peek:
Any other ideas you may have to help with organizing Math/Science materials?
Hop on over to the other teacher blogs to find out how they keep themselves and their classrooms organized.
