Happy President's Day!
I haven't shared much teacher stuff lately... so here's something my aides and i use on a minute to minute basis!
We use a file box as a holding place for all the work that is prepped and ready to be used! Here's what it looks like:
(Just a note that all those clips do have student's names on them. I whited them out for privacy!)
So basically there are 2 hanging files (at least) per subject and the subjects go in the order of our daily schedule from front to back. So what you are looking at in the picture is Warm Up packets (you can see the tab hiding in the bottom right corner of the photo) and then Math with all their math work photocopied and ready to pull out the next unit, then test, and so on. After that there is handwriting which is in my spelling folder because we do handwriting while spelling tests are given. Then on to reading where you can see some manila folders (one saying "The Trains" and one for "The Ships" for some of the groups I have themed this year - I will post about this another time!) Anyway, you get the idea.
You may also notice how there is work standing up vertically and other stuff that is filed properly. The stuff standing up vertically is work that the kids will work on next. The other key to this box is that all work that comes next is on top. For example when we pull out a clip of work for math, the next item that is taken out is the packet on top. Not all of the work is organized by child. Some of it is just in a huge stack, but yet organized that same way. Here's another shot to show an up close look:
This way of organization may seem a bit hard to understand but once you get the hang of it, it can truly become a teacher and a teacher aide's helper. It makes it easy to just pull work out of the file box and it really makes it easy to plan and store work ahead of time. The trick is to always make sure work gets put back into the box when done working on that subject for the day. I am not a fan of one page worksheets and then having to make new work for each student each day. As a special educator that would mean i would never know where my students are at in the curriculum and i would be a basket case trying to figure out a classroom of 12 kiddos. This is how i organize all my student's work and store up coming lessons!
How do you do it in your classroom?
