Organization Tips
Posted by Hope Spencer on 13 Jul 2009 | Posted in: Organization and Supplies, The Mailbox Books
Ah, sweet summertime! Now you can finally find a bit of time to relax, spend days with your family, tackle household projects, and pursue favorite hobbies. But I know teachers, and I know that your students are always on your mind. I’m sure you’ll be spending some of your precious summer hours planning and organizing for the coming school year. With this in mind, I’ve taken some time this morning to gather some organizational tips from several of my favorite Mailbox® books, the “500 Classroom Tips” series.
| From the Preschool book: Thematic Storage Boxes
Decorate your room and store your teaching materials at the same time. Here’s how! Decorate boxes to reflect the thematic materials they will hold. For example, for a farm-related unit, cover a box and its lid with colorful paper. Then glue on farm animal die-cut shapes. Or, for a transportation unit, cover a box with yellow paper. Add black paper wheels, painted windows, and magazine cutout passengers. You’ll be able to tell at a glance where your materials for each theme are located. Plus it’s a great way to spark youngsters’ curiosity for upcoming units! |
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From the K-1 book: Topics at Your Fingertips
Have you collected so many resource books over the years that you don’t even know where to begin looking through them? Here’s a tip to help organize that colossal collection. Arrange your books according to topics—reading, math, centers, art, etc. Using a different color of sticker dots for each topic, attach a dot to the spine of each book. (For example, all reading books might have blue dots on them.) To be sure that the dots stay on the books, cover them with transparent tape. Then arrange the books according to topic (color dot) on a bookshelf or in a file. If desired, make a legend showing each color and topic for your reference. Then, when you need ideas for specific topics, you’ll know exactly where to look! |
From the Grades 2-3 book: Favorite Reproducibles
If you’re always scrambling to locate your tried-and-true reproducibles, try organizing them with this great tip. You will need a three-ring binder with dividers. Label one for each month of the school year. Three-hole-punch your favorite reproducibles (student activities, parent letters, party notices) and place them in the binder according to the month in which they will be used. Your reproducibles will be right at your fingertips when you need them.
From the Grades 4-6 book: Database Organizer
“Where did I see that neat activity?” If this sounds familiar, eliminate searching through magazines and books for lost ideas by creating your own computer database. Set up your database using fields titled “Publication,” “Issue/Year,” “Subject,” “Article,” and “Page Number(s).” As you look through a magazine or book, write the information needed on a sticky note attached to its front cover. Later, type the information from the note into the appropriate database fields. Whenever you need an idea on a specific topic, such as ecosystems, go to the Find command in the database and type the name of the topic. The database will list the name of each idea you’ve entered, including the book/magazine featuring it and the page number on which it can be found. How simple, organized, and convenient!
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53 Responses to “Organization Tips”
More Comments Pages: « 1 2 3 [4] 5 » Show All Comments
More Comments Pages: « 1 2 3 [4] 5 » Show All Comments
Something that I have done is, I copied the INDEX page from all the Teacher Resource books & magazines that we have at our site and then put them in a binder. Teacher’s can scan through that first and know which books/magazines will be the most useful.
This is great! I am re-organizing my curriclum this summer. I want to be able to know what I am doing all year so I can ask the parents for help early in the year to gather supplies or cut things out. I like all of the above ideas. I also got some clear plastic boxes from Joann’s that can hold file folders as well as “stuff”. I am planning on making theme boxes with these. I will put reproducables (like pages from Mailbox) plus books and items that I will use with the theme. I am not organized but really need to be. Because of my space limitations I can not use your idea of covering boxes and leaving them in the room. But I now will decorate my see through boxes for easy ID of content. I do enjoy reading what everyone else is doing. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the great ideas. You are right I love my downtime in summer but can’t resist spending time digging for good ideas to use next year. I also use plastic magazine file boxes to keep my childrens books in, labeled by theme. They fit great on a shelf.
Great ideas, as usual! I also suggest that as you teach a unit, you save a copy and throw it in a file folder. When the unit’s over you have a folder with everything you did this year in it. Next year you’ll be able to see at a glance what you chose to do, and what you chose not to do.
I love all the ideas I get from mailbox too. I keep everything in 3 ring binders with page protectors so I don’t have to punch holes in my original copy. I keep my books in a theme box that I keep other personal things I use for that theme. (I teach preschool). I also have one of those file boxes that I have file folders in so I can file ideas I get for when I am not working on something I have somewhere to put the idea and then go back to it when I need to. Now if I could just figure out a system to keep all the ideas from mailbox organized in a fashion I can just look up when I need it!!! I am thinking of making a 3ring binder to do that and then put them under a tab - I do that with articles so maybe it would work for ideas I want to hold on to from mailbox. thanks!!
These are great tips! I’m not in the classroom right now (staying home with my 3 little ones) but I have tons of teacher resource books on shelves inside my closet and outside in our shed- putting colored dots on them would be a great idea to catergorize them. I often pull them out to use with my own children (I taught preschool/kindergarten) but never put them back- they are so disorganized. Thanks for the encouragement
I’m a creative person always struggling to stay organized. I just started teaching first grade last year after years of teaching kindergarten. I’m going to use the binder idea for my reproducibles. Also like the idea of keeping things in 2 places. Last year I started a binder for all the teacher papers get during the year. I have dividers for schedules, staff meeting agendas, field trip info, coming school events, etc. It really helped keep my desk neater.
After 30+ years of teaching, my sister introduced me to The Mailbox when she was volunteering with a Kdg teacher at my children’s school…I am so glad that she did! Even though I am nearing the end of my career I find the ideas in The Mailbox easy to combine wth my “tried & true” ones. I organize my year in a three drawer filing cabinet…one drawer for each term and have just this year started “re-organizing” by topic in binders…I have had to add a binder just for my Mailbox issues.
I love Mailbox magazine, especially now that you have a 2-3 level. I have taught for over 30 years, but find that Mailbox has fresh and new ideas. Thank you!
thanks for the good ideas. I use the 3 ring binder idea already. I’m looking for a good idea to organize my children’s books. I have them in totes right now but find myself sorting to find the book I need. Any suggestions?
I have such a hard time thinking about what I’m going to do each month and I know I can ALWAYS count on Mailbox magazine to bail me out. Each months magazine is filled with idea after idea for my age group its perfect!
I love the dot idea! I do use the 3-ring binders for my reproducible and they are grouped by theme. I also have a math, science, language arts… binders for general reproducibles that do not go with our preschool themes.