organizer extraordinaire, part 1

It's the summertime. Well, technically it's still Spring until late next week, but when school is out---it's summertime no matter what the calendar says. It's also week 31 of my pregnancy. I spent my last few days on contract overwhelmed and exhausted.

I received my teaching assignment for next year and I shall remain in third grade. I am particularity excited about this because I will be starting the school year in the Labor and Delivery Ward of the hospital so I need everything to be as stress-free as possible. And moving back to 4th grade would have probably been more stressful than staying in third. But unfortunately this means I am moving to a new classroom. So I had to prepare my room for moving. I'd say I did a terrible job of it. And for that I apologize to the custodians. I really didn't prepare well and so when it came down to the last few hours of work, I regretfully began shoving things into plastic bins and on book shelves to be covered with butcher paper. Probably I should call and offer to come up and help them move because I left it far from easy for them. But did I mention I'm 7 months pregnant? My booty is staying home. I will say that packing up the classroom is one of my least favorite parts of teaching, but since you only do it once a year, it's not worth complaining about.

One thing that made packing up my room easier is my year-long obsession with organization. It can get costly, mind you, but IT'S SO WORTH IT!!!

As a teacher, you have a billion materials. Okay, that's exaggerating. More like a million. But basically they go into 4 basic categories:
1. Teacher Materials
2. Teacher Supplies
3. Student Materials
4. Student Supplies

And of course I have a very precise way of keeping them all arranged.

Here is how I started the schoolyear in my classroom:

Welcome to "Nealwood!" Like Hollywood, except using my last night. My entire room theme is Movies and Hollywood.

Above is the view when you first walk in and turn to the right. This is my teacher area. Students are not allowed to wander back in this nook.  Look at all the tubs and bins and everything! This picture was taken the day before school started and I'm happy to say it remained this organized until I packed up last week! Of course I made some changes throughout the year to further my organization, but in the end, it was still neat and tidy!

Above is facing my teacher area. This is the view students would see all day long if I sat at my desk.You can see here that our classrooms are arranged in pods. So we have two sides of our room without walls! That's why I used a ton of shelves, bookcases, and bulletin boards to separate the classrooms.

The above photo is now looking at the classroom from the front. The students are arranged in groups. 

We are still in the front of the room in the above picture. Can you see my teacher area in the back? Can you also see my teacher neighbor making a funny face at me?

 The above picture gives you a good view of the back of the room including the entrance and the classroom library. Last year I used tape on the carpet to keep the students' desks straight but I can't use these lines with my new desks. Probably I should have pulled them up. But easier said than done.

 Above is from the back of the room, looking at one of the front corners.

The above photo offers a great view of the teaching area where I spend most of my day. This includes my SmartBoard. How do you like my stage curtains?

So now that you can visualize somewhat where I work all day, you can begin to understand how I organize things. If I need something to plan my teaching, it belongs in my teacher area.

You can see that EVERYTHING has a space. And each space is LABELED!! I made my own labels, but you can easily find them on TeachersPayTeachers.com or through Pinterest. Oh my gosh, thinking about labels gets me incredibly excited. There are so many cute ones out there. I wonder if I could get away with labeling everything in our house?!?

Anyway, let's continue on with how I organize my teacher materials. 

My first bit of advice? Color code your subjects. I color code each subject to make storing, filing, and organizing easier. 

Red - Science

Orange -  Social Studies

Blue - Reading

Yellow - Spelling

Pink - English

Green -  Writing

Purple - Math

Behind my desk are colored tubs that I ordered from Really Good Stuff.

Within each tub are books that I use to copy worksheets and assessments. These are the books I use most often so I keep them handy. You can see that I ordered two of each color, but I ended up stacking most of them because I didn't need two. But I have them there if I need them! I also keep a tall 4-drawer file cabinet behind my desk where I also store books and additional copies of worksheets, tests, materials, etc. I have a math drawer, science/social studies drawer, reading drawer, and writing/english drawer. There are lots of great tips on organizing a file cabinet. I was going to work on my file cabinet this year but a)I was moved to a new grade level and had to redo everything, and then b)I got preggers! Both of those reasons were enough to make me focus on other things.

Our Literacy curriculum is new. And all of the materials come in about 20 different boxes and files and tubs. So I consolidated. I asked for donations of 2.5 gallon bags from my students' parents. Then I took all the materials and put them in a bag. I keep them in plastic tubs also behind my desk. Then each week, I just grab the bag and all my materials are inside. This is where I can also keep original and additional copies of spelling tests, vocabulary practice pages, leveled practice pages, etc. and all the materials that come with the program for each weekly lesson. I started this mid-year and I am SO GLAD I did it.

 After all the copies for the week are made, I keep them behind my desk on shelves. Each shelf is labeled with a day. And each day has folders (color coded, of course) where I keep the copies. When it's time for an assignment to be distributed, I simply grab the folder!

After students have completed the assignment, they have a special place near my desk to turn in their work:

Yep, you guessed it. Colored coded completed work folders. Even the students get in on the color coding. You'll notice that the purple math folder laminated the tag folded over. When I realized this, I was faced with two options: 1. Hunt down another purple folder, print a new tag, glue it on, and laminate OR 2. Focus on more important things like educating my students.

I chose the latter.

Another idea is to color code teacher manuals. Here's what I do:

This will be all for today. Next time I'll continue to define a teacher as an organizer extraordinaire. Until then, happy summer!