Sunday, May 20, 2012

Classroom Organization

So I was hoping to accomplish more toward my classroom organization for next year, but I've at least got a start and a plan that I'd like to share.

This is a project I've been working on all year-- making my classroom library more accessible for students.  I've managed to label containers for about half of my books so far, but I want to get to a point where I can have all of the books in a sorted container. It makes it a lot easier for students if they know the series, author, or genre that they're looking for. So far I have a Captain Underpants, Junie B. Jones, and Fly Guy series containers, non-fiction animals, and Roald Dahl.

My goal for the summer is to also sort the books by F&P level so that my readers can find books that are just right for them.

I found this website on pinterest of course, but it's helped me to do just that. It is: Booksource's Classroom Organizer. At this FREE website, you can use the ISBN numbers to add books your virtual library where you can add F&P levels AND you can add your students' names to have them actually check out the books from your library! The students have a log in and everything! I am definitely doing this next year because it also is a great way for me to know which of my books have been checked out of my library. I definitely recommend the site and I will keep working on my library through the summer!

I have managed to start doing some serious organizing of my resources. I bought some storage containers and labeled them for the school months and have started to move things from out of my filing cabinet and into this much more accessible storage system. I'm very happy with it so far. I know it may take up a little more room than a filing cabinet, but to me it's worth it because I can also store items that don't fit easily into a filing cabinet--AND I can store books! It's great!

I got this list from Mrs. Freshwater's Class, but if you want actually go to the link, she has little cards she made up for you to label the containers if you are interested. I am using her theme ideas as a template for my containers as well.

August/September: back to school, apples
October: Halloween, Open House, Scarecrows, Monster, etc.
November: Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, 50th Day
December: Gingerbread, Holidays, Winter, Snowman
January: New Year’s, Polar Bear, MLK, Penguins, Chinese New Year
February: Dental Health, Groundhog’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Black History
March: Dr. Seuss, St. Patrick’s Day
April: Easter, Earth Day
May: Cinco De Mayo, Mother’s Day, Butterflies
The little black and green container I am using to store different kinds of paper-- copy, construction, pastels, teacher paper, AND I have one drawer with emergency sub plans.

I also started using this idea to store in some of my bigger plastic storage containers that I wasn't using at my house. I'm not done with that yet, but I've really enjoyed organizing so far!

I hope this gives you some ideas. I'm just getting more and more excited for next year already! :)

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