Organizing your day

This will be short and sweet. I know that many teachers use filing trays or the cubby type boxes from Lakeshore to organize materials for the next day, but I found these magnetic pockets a few years back (I think Lakeshore) and they work great, especially since I have limited counter space. I just use one for each day of the week.



Creating a clutter free classroom-before pics!

Yay!! So I finally got to uploading my photos from my super messy classroom. We started school again on Monday, and I was not allowed to go into my classroom until the day before, Sunday. So . . . I go happily with my husband and almost 15 month old baby girl to my classroom, ready to clean the top of my desk, dust a bit, and clear out as much of my office as I could.

To my surprise (not so much because it has happened waaaay too many times) my floor had been waxed and of course NOTHING had been put back. So my small little organizing task became a classroom cleanup and rearranging project. I have to say that I am very proud of what I accomplished in 5 hours so that now I am much less stressed out this week, but I didn't accomplish what I originally wanted to.

Here is NOT how I left my classroom:

And the process of purging some things from my office.

So . . . .  to the topic at hand. Here is the embarrasing state of my classroom. This is what I need to work on - how I DID leave my classroom :/

 My new "desk" which I just WANT to use for parents to put things and to store my "teacher items".

The next four are of my office. Believe it or not once there was a huge desk inside where I could actually do work!

 An overstuffed bookshelf which I have now temporarily covered with cloth.

My cabinet full of stuff that I've either forgotten about or don't even know about :(

Ok. That's it. I have faith that before the year ends it will all be much more organized :)



One week to go!!!! My classroom so far.

Ok, so a while back I posted my before pictures and said I would update them, but I haven't, because I'm a VERY slow worker. What would take a "normal" person a few hours to do might take me all day. I don't know why, I just sit there and think . . . a lot. Example - it took me 5 hours to put up 5 bulletin boards. Only the fabric and borders mind you. Anyway . . . here is a glimpse of what I have so far. I'm actually pretty proud of myself because the majority of the mess is gone and I'm much farther ahead than other years.

Very proud of this. My new centers area where groups will come to turn in their work, pick up materials, journals, and practice workbooks. As you can tell, my groups are red, yellow, and green. Unfortunately, I've spent so much money I can't even shell out $1 to buy the missing yellow tub :( Maybe later on.

A parent last year (great parent!!!) donated this chica tree but later in the year. This year I'm going to use it starting day 2 when we begin the alphabet. We'll place each letter we learn on the tree and when we complete the letters we have a chica chica bum bum (yes I spelled it right, in Spanis :) celebration!!

I struggle with this part every year. My library. This year I bought the pretty blue and green bins, but could only afford 10, so this is where my small library will be. Currently my trash area as well. Not even my broom (sadly "disappeared"). I still need to wash the rug and pillows that will bo here and label the bins. You can check out my labels here. They're free :)

This is how I left this corner yesterday . . . . and today the custodian took all of the chairs out! Yay! So now (in 3 diff. pics) it looks like this . . .

Students' paper cubbies. I have to have cubbies for my now 50 students because I teach language arts to my class and my partner's. These only hold 24 each, so @ each end one student from each class will have to use a paper tray. The trays in the middle are for students who come from the office with papers to send home. I will hopefully train teach them to place them here instead of interrupting me :)

My "I don't know what to call it if you have an idea please tell me" area. This is where students will turn in homework and thursday envelopes. Of course, missing a tablecloth (needs to be washed).

Listening center. Unfortunately, I've never been able to implement a listening center because I only have one set of books with tapes/CDs. This will be my next donor's choose project (hint-hint). I think I'm going to ask parents to record them this year because I really think it's important for the kids, especially my English only students, to listen independently.

My new teacher's desk. It was donated to our school this year along with the chair. I love it because it's small. My previous desk could have been 2-3 times larger. The only reason I have a desk is because I have the after school program in my classroom every day until 6 pm and therefore need an area to work. They use all of the tables.

My writing BB. I place students' monthly writing assessments here each month using the clips that are there (sorry for the fuzzy pic). I don't take any of them down until the end of the year so that I can easily put them together and send them home as a great memory! Oh . . . and one of the few unsorted piles of 'STUFF' left :/

The beginnings of my literacy centers (like may do's). I've tried many times to incorporate this into my teaching, but have always resorted to the easy playdoh, white boards, blocks, etc. for students to do when they're done, but I really want them to do more enriching activities. Wish me luck! Still need to create a way to give them a choice of what to "play" but in an orderly fashion.

Student cubbies. Had to buy the white wire one on the left because the pink one only hold 20 backpacks and I will have 25 students.

Finally this is in my office. Super easy and organized :) Yay for me. Just pushpins in the wall and black binder clips holding everything up. Easy access to borders, sentence strips, b-day crowns (which I pre-write their names on and place them in order to make things easier), and anything else that lends itself to hanging.

Ok, that's all for now. It might not look like much, but if you knew me, you'd be very proud of what I've done a week before I have to be done. Stay tuned for the final pics. Definitely by next Friday because that's when we have our ice cream social to meet our new kinders!

Check out Teaching Blog Addict to see some great classroom pics!! They're even sorted by grade level!

Free Book Bin Labels!

I'm almost done organizing my books . . . almost. I'm planning on going to school tomorrow (again, 40 miles away) to drop the baskets off so that my baby isn't continually being tempted to empty the bins :) I decided that the best way to simplify the baskets was to classify them based on our Houghton Mifflin themes. That way I can easily display the books from the current theme in the standing book shelf and when I need a theme related book it is easily accessible.

Of course I found lots of books that I just couldn't find a spot for in the LA themes, so I'm going to have to go and buy some more baskets tomorrow :( Sooooo don't have any money left. But this is one of my goals this year, so . . . we'll just eat less :)

I thought I would share the labels I have so far. The font and many of the cliparts are DJ Inkers. I did them an oval kind of shape (was meant to be a circle) just because I felt like it. The baskets have circles and I think I also had Kristen's, from Ladybug's Teacher Files, supply bin labels in my head, so here they are. I'm going to place them on orange cardstock (because that's what I have at home) and laminate them when I can.

As you'll see they are ONLY in SPANISH. But, if you like them just drop me a comment or e-mail and I will be more than willing to translate them for you.

BTW, I am having issues with google docs. It's new to me. I convert my files to PDF then upload them to docs, but then it looks ok, but then the text repeats itself beneath, without formatting. I delete it, but I end up with blank pages. What am I doing wrong? Any help would be greatly appreciated. 



My humble classroom library

Here is the state of my current classroom library:

It is currently all (minus a few I forgot at work that are in need of repair) in my living room. This might not look like a lot, but it's totally a lot more than I thought I had. Spanish kinder interest level books are hard to come by at a reasonable price. This is where they were all hiding. In the little white bookshelf in the corner behind those black chairs and the standing book rack of which you can only see the corner in front of the tv. Tv and chairs are not even mine by the way. I wish I could have gotten a picture of them all strewn around before I towed them all into the trunk of my car.

My goal is to have them organized in the blue and green baskets (from the Dollar Tree) by the end of the week. Wish me luck!

p.s. I've never organized my library books before so this is a daunting task for me. The fear of the kids RUINING my week's work drives me crazy. Any tips on managing the organization without just closing it off to them?

Oldie but a goodie. Pencils? CHECK!

When I went to school this morning (OH! SIDE NOTE! I live about 40 miles away from my school so you can just imagine) I found the fat kinder pencils in my mailbox! Yay! I finally completed my first back to school task! Labeling my pencils! I know . . nothing new, but for me it actually is. I place the pencils in these cups (from the dollar spot) and they fit very nicely into one of the small sections of the supply box (also from the dollar spot, the one with a handle and 3 compartments). Obviously, my partner and I (I team teach) have 3 groups by color, rojo, amarillo, y verde (red, yellow, and green). Last year I didn't label the pencils. BIG MISTAKE! I spent the entire year mediating whose group that pencil belonged to. It drove me crazy. So I'm going this route this year. Found these colored dots that I love at the dollar tree :) Had to buy 2 packs though because one didn't have the green. Crossing my fingers. Let's hope it works.It's at least gotta be better than last year.

The mess!! The before pictures.

So I finally went in to see my classroom today since summer school finished last week. Unfortunately, it is pretty much still the way I left it . . .  a disaster. You see, wahahappen is that I didn't finish packing things up when I should have.

My school is not picky about walls, just things on the floor. My classroom was to be waxed over the summer, but it is always near the end of the summer. So . . . . since I got my check off list signed off I decided that I would return the following Monday after the last day of school and finish packing everything up. Well, to my surprise when I arrived everything had been removed from my classroom because they were waxing that day!!!!

The week after we received a large donation of office chairs which our director decided to store in my classroom, of course, so they wouldn't be damaged by the sun outside. AND it seems that the poor kids actually had 3 weeks of summer school in this mess. Sorry kids :(

HENCE:   this is what my classroom looked like today.

The beautiful view from the entrance.



My only white board on the wall.  I pretty much only use it to award group stars.

My teaching wall, my fridge, and a projector without a working bulb. But waiting for my ELMO and projector!!!! :) 

My new little desk. The door to the electrical room of the school. People are constantly coming in and out. 

Sorry for the dark pic. Our computers. I found 1 headphone broken. 

Some of the donated office chairs and student cubbies. BTW: many of my walls are that beautifully wonderful brick (yeah right), so I do my best to stick stuff in front of them. 

More of the mess. This is a little nook right at the entrance to my classroom. It's been hard to place something useful because I can't see it from most places in the classroom. It used to hold my library (that's another mess . . . summer project for sure!) but I think I'm moving it this year. 

1 of only 2 storage places in the actual classroom, but it's huuuuuge. I'm thinking of sticking it in my office and bringing out the smaller bookshelves from there. But I really like it because it's double sided. Here is also the door to our basement . . . one day to be the school library . . . You can imagine the constant traffic here too. 

Finally, the writing wall . . . still set for next year :) And the door to my office on the left (was a godsend while I was pumping for my daughter!) and the door to boys and girls restrooms.

My goal is to go in once a week to fix something up so that the week back doesn't overwhelm me. We'll see.