Exhausted!!!

I have worn myself out today!  I threw more stuff out in my classroom and I have finally cleaned off 3 out of 5 1/2 tables.   Yes, I have what looks like half a table.  It's half the size of the rest of the tables in the room and I use this table during assessments.  That's why I keep it close to my desk.  Here is a view of my room when I left today.

 

My half table is at the bottom of the picture.  Check out the new pocket charts.  My aide who retired at the end of the year made them for me.  Isn't she wonderful?!

So I did get my baskets out today.  This photo makes me feel like I have accomplished something.

Next to my baskets I have another set of mailboxes, but this set holds construction paper.  I'm not sure if I like this set up.  Sure, it's easy to get out paper, but I'm afraid it might fade so this baby may make it's way into a cabinet.

I also cleaned up behind my desk.  I have all of my leveled books organized.

 

See my clean tables again.  You also get a small glimpse of the mailboxes.

 

One last thing that I did today was label my cabinets.  I have to know where everything is or I forget I have it. Lol

I love my label printer! :)

Classroom Organizing Pics and a New Find

I have been spending a lot of time this week organizing my classroom.  It has been very time consuming.  I moved into the classroom last summer, but didn't get to spend much time on actually organizing.  So here is what I walked into Friday after organizing for a few days.

See!  I made a mess!  I took everything out of the cabinets and I bought smaller shoe box sized containers at Big Lots.  The were only $1 each!

I realized that many of the existing containers were too large to hold what I needed them to hold so I forgot what was in the containers and things didn't get used.

Here is some after pics:

Notice that everything in the cabinet is easy to see and find.  I used my handy little label maker to label the contents of every container.  The great thing about the labels is that they peel off cleanly and easily if I need to use the containers to hold something else.

 

I tried to group the items in the cabinets in a way that made more sense to me.  I put the reading materials and crafts supplies in a cabinet.  The math, science, and social studies supplies are in another cabinet.  I have a cabinet that has paper and large blocks, and then I have this cabinet that contains seasonal items along with extra puzzles and games so I can rotate materials throughout the year.

 

 

I plan to use clear labels to label the outside of the cabinets with general categories so I can locate items easily.  I hope to start doing that on Monday.  Here is a look at the room when I decided it was time to quit for the day.

See!  It's not as bad.

I spent some time organizing the materials on this side of the large shelf too.

I still need to take the cover off of my computers and the brown paper off the bulletin boards, but I have faith that I will finish soon.  On another note, I had the idea of getting aprons for my aide and myself to wear when the kiddos are painting.  I have ruined so many shirts through the years on painting days.  I happen to find these vinyl aprons at Big Lots for $6.  They are perfect!

The true test will come when I break out the paints!  If you missed my post earlier, I am having a 20% off sale at both my Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook stores.  Just click the store widgets on the right hand side of my blog and it will take you to my store.  Happy shopping!

My New Favorite Tool and Shelf Organization

I went into my classroom yesterday and I worked a little bit.  I had already set my furniture up earlier in the week so I decided to do some organizing.  I have been cleaning out my files and cabinets.  I have decided that I need to designate a spot for our classroom toys.  One thing about teaching kindergarten is the fact that you have soooo much stuff and toys make up some of that stuff. 

When I moved into my classroom last year, I didn't move things around much so I had this double sided shelf that wasn't being used to it's full potential.  I decided to move it so I could make full use of both sides of the shelf.  Most of the toys in my room were stored in cabinets which makes it a pain when it is center time.  I am working on making them more accessible to students by moving them out of the cabinets and onto some shelves.  I will still have to store some in the cabinets, but this allows me to rotate what I put out for students to keep things fresh and exciting.  We all know that there is a point that they don't seem to play with things as much.  Here is a picture of what I have been working on.

I plan to add picture labels to the containers to cover up the ugly labels that are really stuck on them.

While I was working on my room, I ended up using this new tool I bought at the dollar spot at Target.

This thing is great!  Let me show you what else it does.

 

 

 

 

 

I think this is the perfect tool for the classroom.  Now I can finally fix things or change batteries easier.  I no longer have to hunt down someone with the right screwdriver in the building and for only $3 that's a price you can't beat.

Teacher Desk Organization

So I decided to clean out my desk today.  One of my drawers was already organized.  See...

I have my certificates and some of my stickers in the basket, along with a large book stamp.  At the top of the photo, I used drawer organizers that I found at Linens and Things.  The organizers are plastic and fold flat.  Notice I keep my tape dispenser in the drawer also.  I have tape happy kids and some how they seem to have tape when they don't need it.  The two drawer organizers sit on top of a larger organizer.  Inside the larger organizer, you will notice that it is divided.  I keep all of my stamps sorted by holidays and purpose so I can find them easily.  This is the view with one organizer lifted up.

This is what it looks like when both organizers are removed.

I organized the rest of my desk drawers today, but I didn't take pictures.  I'll post more soon.  Check out my Facebook page, I posted a picture of some cute pencil flags that I found at the Dollar Tree.  My kids love them!  They are a great way to reward students for hard work and effort.

Reading File Organization

     So I have spent a lot of time this year organizing my reading files and making it easier and quicker for me to plan and gather materials.  I have my files organized by reading story in a hanging file folder.  I bought large, plastic envelops with string closures to keep all of my masters so I do not accidentally hand them out.  I really wanted the envelops that close with Velcro, but Office Max did not have them.  Here is what my envelops look like:

     Notice on the outside of the envelop I have a label in the middle and in the upper, left corner.  I printed the larger label from Mrs. Lewis's Cyber Classroom.  This is a great site if you use Scott Foresman Reading Street in your classroom.  She has resources for K-5 on her site.  I love the large label because it tells me the unit, the name of the story, and all the skills for the week.  I printed the labels off, cut them out, and ran them through my sticker maker so that they would stick like mailing labels.  In addition to the large label, I used my label maker to make a smaller label that can be spotted from the top of the file cabinet.  See...

     Now you are probably wonder what all of the manila envelops and baggies are.  Well, these are my station activities that students complete independently and each one is based on the skills for the week and some are for period review.  Many of my stations fit in a Ziploc baggie or a large envelop that I have laminated, such as this one

 and this one

A few of my stations are file folder games like this

     Where do I get my stations?  I sometimes buy my station games like the ones shown above, but I also make them or find them online and print them out.  There are a lot of great ideas on the web and at places such as Teachers Notebook and Teachers Pay Teachers.  For every story, I have at least 5 stations and many of my station games and activities are in multiple copies.  This allows for more than one student to enjoy the same game or activity at the same time.  Also, I include some type of product with many of my station games and activities.  I have a few students this year that would not complete their stations if I did not require them to do something written.  Sometimes I will find a worksheet that goes with the skill or I will create a response sheet.  Overall, it has been easier to gather my materials for the week since I have started organizing my reading materials this way.  I hope to start organizing my math materials soon.