I absolutely cannot believe that it is September already. I've been SO busy lately (and sick) that I haven't really stopped since school started. The beginning of school was quite different this year now that I'm in 4th grade but I have a classroom full of excited children. I have to say that I am LOVING 4th grade... especially the SS! It's been a huge change but I'm embracing it! :)
I'm always searching for great ways to have everything organized. And let me tell you ... it just makes a HUGE impact on how my classroom runs. My OCD kicks in hard-core when I'm in my classroom so anytime I can sneak in a way to make something better, I'm ALL for it! Moving classrooms from one end of the school to the other has made me rethink some things. One of them was how I organize handouts, etc. for each subject of the day. I have each day in a slide out drawer container but then that certain day wasn't organized the way that I wanted. I really didn't want anything else on/under/around my desk so I had to figure out a solution. About the 3rd day of school, I just happened to realize that the bottom drawer of my desk is its own filing cabinet! OH BOY! It was ridiculous at how excited I was about this!!!
I have a file folder labeled for each subject of the day so that I can easily find things, change things, and "load up" for the following day.
And then it was on to conquering my paper problem. I have a huge cabinet where I keep all of my paper for my printer but I needed a space for my kiddos to choose paper to publish their final drafts on in writing. I'm all about choice when it comes to writing! So I decided to turn an old crate into a writing paper station. I have the folder labeled 1 to how many ever I need.
The numbers coordinate with the notebook that sits in front of it.
If you like paper #6 in the notebook, go to the #6 folder. It's almost like a catalog.
I can just set the notebook in the front of the crate and students can easily choose. It's easy to add papers because all of them are in page protectors and I have additional file folders in the crate. The label is on the outside of the page protector.
Here's how it looks in my classroom:
How do you organize "student choice" for writing and daily handouts in your classroom?
Smiles and Snapshots,
Courtney
