Get Organized!

Put It in Your Pocket
A hanging plastic shoe organizer can make a great classroom organizer. Write each students name on a card and attach it to one of the pockets. When a student is out sick, the absent students buddy or neighbor is responsible for placing any seatwork or other assignments into the absent students pocket. You can also use this hanging pocket chart as a tool for organizing papers that are set to go home. At the end of each day, each student can take the papers from his or her pocket. (Hint: If you teach young students, assign the top pockets to the tallest students in the class.)

More Tips For even more Classroom Management Tips, check out our Classroom Management Tips Volumes 1-41. Do you have a tip to share? Send it to [email protected].

Hold That Thought
See an idea you like in a teacher magazine? Find two or three ideas in one issue? Instead of letting those magazines gather dust and take up space, tear out the ideas you think you might use and file them. Create a file folder for each month of the school year and drop the ideas into the folder named for the month in which you would most likely use the idea. Then make it a point to go through the monthly folders a month in advance to review and choose a new idea or two to try out in the weeks ahead.

Now I Know My ABCs
Organize your classroom library alphabetically (by title or author). That will make it easier for you to find the book you want. More importantly, it will reinforce students alphabetizing skills. If you teach young students, all A books might make it into the A area of the bookshelves. At the upper grades, the books should stay fully alphabetized.

Organize E-mail
Create an e-mail folder that is titled Remember This. Whenever you receive an e-mail with a good idea in it, simply move the file into your Remember This e-mail folder. Doing that saves printing things out, and all your ideas are held in one place.

Avoid Weekly-Folder Frenzy
Weekly Folders are a great home-school communication tool that many teachers use and parents appreciate. Sorting students corrected work can be a time-consuming task, however. Make that chore easier by using stackable trays -- one tray for each student -- or a file cabinet with a hanging folder labeled with each students name. That way, as you correct work you can file it immediately, making it easier to gather students work at the end of the week.

Article by Linda Starr
Education World®
Copyright © 2007 Education World

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