CLASSROOM ORGANIZATION IDEAS

[Music] hey guys welcome back to my youtube channel so if you are new here my name is Shelly I'm a third grade teacher in Northern California this is my second year teaching and my second classroom I did have to move rooms last year so as you can tell by the title of this video I am going to be giving you a handful of ideas on how to organize your classroom especially if you're a new teacher it is super overwhelming the amount of stuff that you accumulate and that you're handed and trying to find the best system and way to organize it for you can be really really tricky so I'm gonna share with you ways that I organize my classroom now this is not the end-all be-all and I guarantee you if I make this video in two years it's gonna be completely different however I wish when I was a new teacher setting up a classroom maybe even not a new teacher I wish somebody just got on here and gave me different ideas and ways to organize stuff so hopefully you guys find this a little bit helpful if you do enjoy these type of videos go ahead and hit the subscribe button down below make sure you give this video a thumbs up and let's get started so I basically broke down different organization systems that I have running in my classroom and I'm gonna have clips of all of those here for you so I think I'm just gonna start one by one and I'm gonna walk through what I use in my classroom and some other things that I've seen that maybe you think would work better for you okay so the very first thing is your classroom library I have seen this done a ton of ways and the way that I do it this year I prefer to the way I did it last year so I don't have built-in bookcases for a library in my classroom so I did have to purchase bookcases so I highly recommend waiting to see your space before you do that however if you don't get bookcases definitely search for something that can hold dins for me personally I use the Dollar Tree bin so a dollar each and I separate my library by genre I've also seen it done by reading levels which honestly I don't know I'm kind of tempted to steer away from that just because I want kids reading what they enjoy and then on top of my classroom library I have the students book bins and I personally hate when kids have stuff on their desk it drives me insane so this is just a way to get their silent reading books off their desk and in a safe space so they know where their stuff is now I am did admit I'm not the best at keeping my library organized because I do find that the genre is kind of get shifted however I do have two librarians as classroom jobs that kind of go through and make sure my library is intact so that is how I organize my library in the sense of the books and then as far as the space goes I just make sure I have enough seating options and I want to make it as cozy and comfy as possible for the kiddos the next organization system that you're gonna think about is how you want to organize student supplies now this is still a work in progress for me and I totally changed the way I did it from last year some schools all the kids have enough supplies from home so they have pencil boxes which is great I have also seen teachers have like pouches on the backs of kids chairs last year I have the caddies in the middle and I just hated that but that is something that you could do if you think that would work for your kiddos I am thinking next year I want to try something totally different and use like a three drawer system but I actually really like the way my organization is working this year so basically what I do is on my I call it my supply counter now each table group has a cup of colored pencils or markers and glue and scissors and that's their table stuff so if we ever need the supplies I have their team captains go over there pick them up and they know what they need so for me personally that is what I have found this year works the best for me as far as student supplies go if you have any other ideas on how to store student supplies go ahead and leave them down below I want this to be a communal conversation because again this is only my second year I don't know everything and I'm always looking for other organization tips the next space I want to talk about it's actually right behind me and it is your guided reading guided math area so for my guided readers I actually used the same book bins that my students have and I leveled those by reading level because if we're guided reading the levels do actually matter because you want to target their specific instructional reading level so that has worked really well for me and the sense of grabbing books that I need and then I have another bookcase and I've also seen it's done in a carp so you keep that in mind to where I organize the supplies that I'm going to need so as you can see I have my word work tub up there my math manipulatives I have trays I have two little three drawer systems where I keep supplies that I might need I have these three baskets down here to divide up my different groups of work or work in progress that we're currently working on in guided reading um I also keep my guided reading plans back here I also keep my running record boxes back here as well I love this space because I just know where everything is and this did not start this way at the beginning of the year so I'm really happy that it's kind of transitioned into what it is now again I'm sure it'll look a little bit different as I advance in my career but for now this is what works for me okay so then the next organization system is extra supplies slash like teacher supplies I'm fortunate enough to have a big cabinet and I organize all of my supplies in the same tubs that I used from the Dollar Tree and I labeled them labels are huge for me when it comes to organization it's just when you open up a space and you can see everything right in front of you there's some things that just makes my little organizational heart like pitter-patter because it's just so easy to see and clean and declutter and I love it another thing for teacher supplies if you don't have one I highly recommend you get a teacher toolbox this is like for my personal supplies that I keep behind my desk and as you can see there's just a bunch of little drawers again very clearly organized and labeled and it's just it really helps with keeping your desk decluttered so highly recommend I will link these labels down below so that's how I organize my supplies and extra supplies it's what works for me if you have like I said I have other ideas leave them down below if you don't have a cabinet I'm interested to see how you handle that so go ahead and leave a comment the next area that you're gonna want to organize is your manipulatives this could also be kind of partnered with like stem or like a makerspace I personally use tubs just from the Dollar Tree I like to have lids on them because manipulatives tend to mean little pieces and I use this cubby system that I honestly got a garage for like 20 bucks and that holds all of my manipulatives that I currently have I have also see teachers do this in a drawer system so if they have some sort of a drawer unit they can put the manipulatives in there so that's another way to think about organizing when your manipulatives again I highly recommend labeling everything so it's easy for the kids to see easy for you to see in our classroom they can go over there and take whatever they need at any time so I like to have things nice and clean organized and easy to see so it's nice for the kids another area you might want to think about as far as classroom organization goes is your anchor charts this is something that I am enjoying a lot this year so I love anchor charts I think they're super important in the classroom however you don't want to keep everything up all year long it's just not necessary well I mean maybe it's necessary but it's just not possible I don't have a wall space so I will fold mine up and I will either put them on a coat rack that I have in my cupboard again I'm fortunate in that sense I also have like a laundry rack that I got from Target right now it's housing my pocket chart but I've also used clothes hangers to pinch and hold my anchor charts and then I've lined them up that way so that's definitely a way that you could store your anchor charts I've also seen teachers get those big plastic bags and they store them in that wind and they like can slide them under stuff I just like the ability to kind of flip through them like a clothing rack and see what I could pull out and things like that so that's what works for me and my classroom okay I saved this one towards the end because I'll probably spend half the video talking about it I still struggle with this and that is your paper flow I feel like I can divide this up into several categories but I'm just gonna go by showing you what I currently use so the first thing that I do is I have three units that each have three drawers in them and I have these separated out by subject many teachers do it by day of the week I prefer to do it by subject because our school days just get crazy and I never stick to my Monday through Friday plans it's just we just don't get through everything so that is what I use for my paper flow I also have a green basket right here that's where I put the work that we are going to be focusing on throughout the day or maybe even couple of days depending on like I said what we can get through so that is what I have right here I also have a basket on top of my drawer systems and that's where I put extra work so if I made too many copies or a kid wasn't here that's where I put everything so I know exactly where to go when the kid goes I didn't get one so that's what's been working for me this year I just started about a few months ago and then over here on my wall I actually put these wall hangings because this is the stuff that I could not figure out how to store so this admin miscellaneous area is just like the IEP forms that you get random schedules throughout the year your calendars PD information that's just stuff but I had no idea where to put it so now I have a specific spot for it and it's actually been working out amazing and then right below it I have a need to copy file I used to have this in my three drawer system but I found because I couldn't see it I wasn't doing it so that is what's here and then my other one is teacher resources these are books that I am currently teaching out of we're using resources out of and again this was stuff that was taking up space on my desk it was driving me absolutely nuts so that was my solution also I have a magnetic file folder on my filing cabinet and this is where I keep a lot of my direct teaching materials so our writing and math notebooks that I will pull out and put under the document camera I always keep a whiteboard in there any worksheets that were kind of still in progress will go right in there and I love that it's magnetized so that works really well for us so that's kind of just like the main paper flow that drives teachers absolutely insane the next paper for I want to talk about is like literal paper so your plain paper your colored paper your cardstock your laminating sleeves all of that miscellaneous stuff and then for me things that I grab all every single week reading logs spelling tests things like that I keep that in this rolling cart right here this is from Michaels no you cannot baha'i it blue and green I bought the clear one and I ended up just spray-painting the drawers and then again I have everything labeled and this is going to we get a makeover because throughout the year I realize that I don't need a whole drawer for certain things so the labels might not be accurate at the moment but I love the way this works because spelling chests on Friday I just open up my drawer and grab what I need and it's very readily available so I like that as far as literal paper flow goes I also have in my supply counter like two baskets for plain and binder paper for the kids to have access to so that works for us and then the next set of paper flow is like filing right whether it's student work that you want to save or files for next year so I do have this filing cabinet it is a four drawer filing cabinet that I bought for five dollars and I painted the whole thing white and I use Dollar Tree contact paper to resurface the fronts of it just to make it a little bit prettier because filing cabinets are disgusting anyway I have different files this is nothing fancy this is just your typical filing cabinet and this isn't really where I store curriculum it's where I store those like miscellaneous activities or forms back-to-school night stuff things like that because my curriculum setup is totally different which I'll show you here in a minute but I do like this for like miscellaneous papers and things like that alright so then that brings us to curriculum no last year I really really struggled with this especially with our ela curriculum because there's so much stuff so part of my ela curriculum is behind me my small readers all go in my guided reading section know my math curriculum the actual books are in this cardboard box right here and I don't love it but I just couldn't think of anything to do with that for the year so that stays in this cabinet now to the left of that I have this system from Michaels and each little drawer space is a clear container and I split up the units and I have the manuals in there and then the assessments and everything fit perfectly in this system so I love this because I don't have to look at the curriculum it's cleaner it's neater and it just works everything so vertical it's do you have a lot of space so that is what I've been loving what I've been loving more is these tubs math this looked a lot different last year and I just had everything in like folders and in the filing cabinet and I just couldn't see anything it drove me absolutely nuts so I think these bins are from Big Lots maybe Target don't quote me on that but I broke up our math units and two of them aren't here to be completely honest with you but whatever it is what it is and that way when I'm working on unit I can pull out the tub and everything I can just shift through it and I don't have to like I don't know it just was a really easy way to see everything and I've been loving this system it's also a lot easier for me to when I finish something just throw it in the tub then it is to like go to the file and camp I don't know there's something about a filing cabinet with curriculum that just doesn't sit well with me so this is another option another way that you could possibly store your curriculum I just like I said I love how neat it is how clean it looks you're not looking at a bunch of papers but you know where to find everything so that's what's been working really really well for me quick little insert I realized I forgot to talk about these tubs and this is what I use to organize our IB curriculum so anything specific that goes along with that unit that is what goes in here another really good way to organize any other types of curriculum these are supposed to be like hanging drawers as you can see I've gotten lazy and I just like throw stuff in there but still it's a lot more meat to look at this way I do have a classroom tour where I go into everything so if you want that I'll link it down below or put a card up here or something so you could have that but for this I'm specifically focused on organization but then I think the last kind of area that I want to talk about is just like miscellaneous stuff and I made a little list because it didn't really fit in anywhere but I thought it would be interesting to talk about or maybe I'll just give give you an idea if you're struggling with these things so pink is like indoor recess games I just keep everything down below in a cabinet and kids know where to go I don't have any fancy system as far as that goes just cabinet space and it's kind of messy and it is what it is but I thought I'd mention it another thing is clipboards this is what I use for clipboards I think it's like a magazine rack but this is what's been working for us I obviously don't have a full class set so that helps but this is I think from Walmart and the last random thing that I could think of is like my calendar and how I change my calendar so I have this card up front and I have a little basket where I keep all of the cards that I would ever need to change my calendar and then that's it's here it's out of the way and it's just a nice place to put everything so this is the last thing headphones this drove me nuts last year so hopefully this helps you get a shoe rack and put the headphones in it it it works perfectly I have mine over at my partner and ice teaching door the kids walk over there they get them if they're too high I have that little step stool to the side and they use that oh my gosh this changed the game for me they had them in their desks they were breaking all the time it was just a nightmare but that's really changed my life so I really hope if you're struggling with that you can take that if anything from this video okay guys so those are the main organization systems that I use in my classroom if you have any questions or if you notice that I missed something huge please leave them down below and I'm gonna go through and I'm gonna try to answer every single question that I can I know organization is overwhelming I know it feels like it can't be done I still feel that way and I have all these systems in place so again I just wanted to make this to give you some more ideas I'm not saying this is the right way and if you have a better way again please share it with us because we wanted to know but other than that I really hope this helps in some way especially if you're starting your very first classroom we've all been there and it's super overwhelming and stressful that's so much fun so enjoy it so I'm gonna go ahead and end this video now make sure you are following me over on Instagram subscribe on your way out and then if I'm Matt I love you guys I hope you're having a wonderful day wherever you are in the world and I will see you in the next video okay

Channel: Early EDventures

Views: 110,466

Rating: 4.9343977 out of 5

Keywords: classroom organization, organization tips, classroom organization tips, classroom decor, classroom setup, how to organize a classroom, classroom decorating, pocketful of primary, five foot one teacher, first year teacher, teacher vlog

Id: WeRPQJkeumI

Length: 17min 9sec (1029 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2019