A Rainbow Of Organization!

I LOVE being organized.  I guess it’s the neat freak in me.

One of the things that was always a huge mess and really bugging me was my construction paper.

I’d stack it on the shelf and of course the color I wanted was on the bottom, which caused a tug of war to get it out, and piles often tipped over.

Children could not access it, doing something with scraps was a nightmare, and corners and edges were getting dog-eared and torn.

I had to do something!  My organizing system actually came about because I had to haul all of it back and forth to the place with a huge collection of die cuts.

Every summer I spent 2 entire days cutting out all the adorable little pieces of whatever, that I needed through out the year, for various projects.

I put the construction paper in 2 plastic files, so I could easily tote them and see at a glance what colors I had.

The first file had the colors of the rainbow. The second, pink, brown, white, buff, black, gray, and multi-speckled.

I separate the colors with green hanging file folders. 

I include the various shades as well, and go from darkest to lightest (i.e. see the shades of blue.)

The hanging files are also perfect for putting large scraps of that same color in.

If I get too many scraps, I put the scraps in a separate crate and fold over a piece of that colored paper into a tab and tape it to the top of the file, so that I know what color is inside the files.

I do the same thing for my colored and fancy printed copy paper.

These files come with lids so you can stack them to save on storage space.

The plastic protects the paper, so no more ripped and dog-eared corners.  The paper doesn't get dusty nor faded either, and  I can see at a glance what colors I need more of.

Another big + is they are portable! When I need construction paper for my students, I simply take out a file and put it where the students can access it.

I explain to them how hard I’ve worked to make this neat and to please help me keep it that way.

We have “Scrap Patrol” to help pick up and put away scraps to teach conservation and responsibility.

I feel teaching life skills and showing students how to be neat and organized is valuable and extremely important.

Children are eager to please, and I praise their efforts.  As long as you make clean up fun and give students an easy system they can work with, you are good to go.

If you don't have these files, but have a lot of plastic crates, they would also work and store easily under a desk. Crates also have the little ledges needed to hang a file folder, and can be stacked.

Do you have an organizational tip you could share with us?  I’d enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com or you can leave a comment here.  Thanks in advance for taking the time to share.

Thank you too, for visiting.  I hope you can pop on over tomorrow for more back to school ideas and teaching tips.

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“To teach is to be full of HOPE!” –Larry Cuban