Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Essential Classroom Organization

Along with compassion and general knowledge, the most important key to teaching is organization.

Now I know some of you might disagree with this, but I have found that I am not the best teacher I can be if I am not organized. Things like misplacing tests or loosing students' papers is unacceptable. There are a couple of techniques that I have found to be essential to my everyday teaching-organization:

1. A trustworthy filing system. The best thing I've found to file (not to mention de-clutter my desk) is a free standing file like this one found on Pinterest: 

I like to have at least four dividers going at one time (to teach, to copy, to grade, and extra copies). On a good day, I like to clean out my files once a week to move to a more permanent location. 

2. Labels. Can I just say I love labels? Not only are they useful to find things but they're pretty :)  Personally, I like to have a separate binder for each major unit I teach in the year (To Kill a Mockingbird, grammar, short stories, etc.) and for said binders to be labeled for easy access. Also, inside these binders I have MORE labels (assessment, activities, vocabulary, study guides, etc.). No more searching through folders or files to find what you're looking for. These are some of the labels I have made for easy classroom organization. Feel free to check out my Teachers Pay Teachers site for more labels like this. 




What organization techniques do you use in your classroom that are essential to your everyday teaching? 

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