A Place for Everything...

I love to be organized. No joke, in my undergrad, each class had its own notebook, folder, and highlighter in the same color. For example, my Reading Methods color might have been orange so it had an orange folder and notebook, and any assignments I had due would be highlighted in my planner in orange. And so on and so forth.

Hello, my name is Jessica and I may have a smidge of OCD.

However, I think it's incredibly important as a teacher to be organized. Whatever your system is, you have to find what works best for you otherwise you'll lose your mind. So, here's part 1 of my organization.

Monthly Boxes
Because my themes mostly stay the same from year to year (I'm not gonna do a fall theme in February, for example), I'm able to keep most of my materials and manipulatives in a box. These boxes rotate out each month so that I have everything I need at my fingertips. Some things I might put in there:

• Bulletin board letters
• Manipulatives (I'm always on the lookout for erasers and other small things I can use)
• Worksheets (I slip these in dry-erase sleeves to use during center rotations)

The is the second year I've used this system and I.LOVE.IT. Unfortunately, I keep finding more stuff so some months are in overflow Sterilite shoeboxes as well (December and October, mostly; I have a lot of Halloween/holiday stuff in there).

I keep each theme's paperwork in manila folders and then chuck my teacher created cards and activities in there too. Some months are almost impossibl to close. I don't know what system I'll end up using if/when I teach in an elementary school, but I have no doubt it will be some kind of spin on this one.