I know this is a favorite topic of all teacher bloggers and Scholastic's Instructor Magazine runs at least three articles related to it at the beginning and end of every school year, but I noticed something as I was cleaning out my new classroom. I wasn't the only one. At least half the staff was doing the same thing, and not all of them were new teachers, many were returning to the same room they'd had the year before. Now most of them were at least savvy enough to put all of the copies of a single title away together (seriously, how hard is that?!?), but they were still spending hours doing things that would have only taken minutes if things had been set up and done properly the year before. Obviously this is something that is addressed often because it is a common and continuing issue for teachers. So, since I have been accused of being obsessive about organization (it's been suggested that I may have a very real problem an am in need of professional help), here are my top tips for organizing a classroom and all of those wonderful resources that we teachers are addicted to (and if you want to see a huge amount of resources, take a look at the supply an ESL teacher who's taught all grades has built up!):
1. When you finish with something, put it away where it belongs. I admit that the day is busy and when I have four students, two teachers, and a para-pro all talking to me at once I tend to just set things down on whatever flat surface is available. In fact an often played game in my room is: "Where did Miss Bowman put her pen for the smart board?" Things get busy and we don't have time to file that paper properly or put the game back onto the correct shelf at the back of the closet, that's just life and is what we all face. What I do though is I don't leave my classroom at the end of the day until everything is put back where it belongs. One day's worth of clutter does not take long to tuck away, a week's worth is a different story. So at the end of each hour I make the students put their own materials away and tidy their group areas and then at the end of each day I double check their areas and tidy my own. It usually takes me about five minutes to do the entire room.
2. File papers by subject, not by unit or date. In the last five years I've lived through and adjusted to five different curricula at two different common core schools. It's time we face facts: the curricula is going to change, most likely every year, and while you'll still teach basically the same objectives, it'll be in a new order and/or in a new combination. I am responsible for all four core subjects as well as new arrival language and vocabulary, I have a lot of objectives to cover and materials for all of them. In my teacher room (aka: home office) I have two large file cabinets. The drawers are all labeled: math, science, social studies, general (ESL), grammar, books, phonics, and alphabet. This way when I have to teach an objective related to nouns, I go to the grammar drawer, pull out the noun folder, and all of my paper-based resources are there for me to sort through and choose the best ones for that particular group of students. I'm not left search through multiple unit folders or grade boxes looking for that "really cool activity that I did with that one group of students a couple years ago". It's all there, in the folder, along with any ideas I've run across in the time since and haven't had a chance to use yet.
3. Store materials and activities by subject. I spent several years trying to figure out how best to organize my various non-paper materials. I needed a system that was cheap, easy to use, and could hold lots of different types of materials of all sizes. I finally settled one that has been working well for several years now. I purchased plastic shoe boxes and put stickers on the outside telling me what the main subject was (ie: nouns, scientific method, integers, etc.). Inside the box I toss all the games I've made, task card sets, manipulatives, even an index card with a list of books and commercial board games relating to the topic. Some of my subjects have out grown their shoe boxes and I've had to purchase larger plastic containers, but the system works well. Just like my paper files, when I'm teaching an objective on fractions I go to the closet, pull the fraction box and everything is there for my perusal.
4. Store for easy use. I've been accused of being addicted to zip-lock bags, and to some extent it's probably true. All of my home-made games and task card sets are stored so they are grab-and-go. If it is a game that has six sets (one for each group of students) I put each individual set in a zip-lock bag and place all six smaller bags inside one larger bag along with the directions page and any handouts or answer keys. Also in the bag are any extra materials the kids need such as dice or counters. If it's a consumable supply (such as dry erase markers) I put a sticky-note on the inside of the bag to remind myself to grab them. This way I don't spend time gathering materials from several different places, when I want to use my parts of the body board game it's all there: game boards, dice, place markers, directions, even an answer key for a substitute.
5. Digitize when possible. I tend to toss ideas I run across into the appropriate folder for later use, but that leads to a lot of paper build-up. A few years ago I started going through my files and scanning worksheets and handouts, this allowed me to recycle the paper but still have the idea (the guys who've helped me on my many moves are very thankful--digital files are so much lighter than paper). My digital folders are organized just like my paper, there's even a folder on my computer called vertical file and in it everything is stored in alphabetical order (so if I'm teaching a lesson on weather I go to vertical file, w, weather). This just keeps my teaching ideas separate from my personal files. It also makes it easy to download and store all those wonderful free resources that get sent to my inbox each week from the various teacher website/stores (see my contact page for links).
6. Organize your library. One of my friends used to work in the library at college and she organized her library using the Dewy Decimal System. I'm not that good. I do however have several sets of bookshelves (my dad says making me any more would be enabling an addiction) and my books are organized, again, by subject. All of my math books are on one shelf, science another, non-fiction teaching books are together and then sorted by subject, and fiction books are sorted by reading level and author/topic (so all my picture books about baseball are shelved together and all books by Beverly Cleary are in another section). This saves me from having to look through every shelf in my house to find a copy of A Five Dog Night when I want to teach writing algebraic equations, I already know it's on the top shelf, to the right of the picture window, on the far end, with the other math books.
I know my tips and methods are not anything revolutionary, they are based off of principles that have been passed down through the generations (whenever I think about number one I hear my mother's voice in my head), but they work for me. When I'm not setting up a brand new classroom in a brand new school, it takes me less than a day to get everything on the walls and my weekly lesson planning time is typically much shorter than my colleagues report. I really believe this is because I don't have to spend time hunting and gathering, it's all right there and that leaves more time for the fun and innovative parts of teaching.