How I use the 43 Folder System

you guys know that change has always been something that I've been very fond of I tend to get really bored with like my classroom arrangement with my decoration with my teaching I always like to mix things up to make things better but it's always so interesting that even though I've changed from kindergarten to fourth grade to the Makah team even though I've changed my instructional styles or my classroom one thing has really always stayed the same in my room and that's my 43 folder system so this morning I drove our truck and I am not really a fan of driving the big truck because I am NOT a very good Parker but I have to say that I did a pretty stellar job parking that truck [Music] all right this morning I'm gonna do some little cleanup we've been working on ornaments I'm gonna show you those in just a little bit we've also been doing some other projects in this classroom so my room with a little bit dirty yesterday we had as I gota that go to one the first trimester y'all I am team Oh a mu Z if some of you do not know if you haven't been watching for me for very long we have the house system for the Mac team so everybody has been sorted into their houses I am the MU Z team and as I go to one the first trimester and I was just crushed we were so close like this closed we were really really close and really and truly I think if we had another week we would have smoked them but we didn't we had a zygote as party yesterday and they chose to have ice cream and waffles which is always a good time I love me some ice cream and waffles also delicious and I have to say that I am also a pretty awesome waffle maker so I have that mess that I still left there because I just went home yesterday and had a conference a concert so I have a mess I'm gonna do some cleanups and then we're going to get ready for [Music] so here's how and here is what you need in order to kind of implement this 43 folder system idea and I'm gonna go a little bit in-depth and I'm gonna show you guys how use kind of David Allen's ideas and how I use my file system to be able to make my organization and my workflow really work for me so here's what you need you need 43 folders folders of some kind I use hanging folders just because it's the easiest for me I like have them inside of my bio cabinet it's kind of tucked in the corner nobody can really see it and it allows me to be able to stuff it - that's max if you end up choosing something that's more of a container just know that you're not going to be able to fit as many things inside of your folders because it doesn't expand the way a file cabinet expands so I have kind of dedicated an entire file cabinet or at least a drawer to that file cabinet for my 43 folders [Music] [Applause] [Music] what you'll need to do is for each folder you're gonna have 31 of them and then you're gonna number them 1 all the way to 31 this represents the possible number of these that you can have within a month you're never gonna exceed 31 days so that's why you end up needing 31 folders for that because it never goes above that in a month and then you're gonna take 12 more folders you can change them into a different color you can also you know have them color-coded by the month it's all up to you on how you want or get as far as color goes I kept it pretty simple because this is what I had on hand and you're gonna label these for each possible month up to the year so January February March April all the way up to December now you have your 43 folders alright so let's take a look at my folder system so here is my folder system it really isn't anything fancy to be honest but here's how I use it so I have my numbers I have all of my numbers as you can see and they go all the way to 31 and then I have my month so you'll see all of my months back here and then I have my December right up here now the reason why I have this separated this way is because you take the month that you are currently in and you keep that month up front this allows you to put any papers or activities that you find but you don't really know when to use it up here in this pocket and then as you realize that hey you know what I have time to be able to use that item that I found now I'm gonna place it into one of the folders for the day that I want to use it so this is kind of your catch-all for the month and you can do the same for any of the other folders so for instance let's say that in January I found a really cool Martin Luther King jr. activity that I wanted to do and so for that month I don't really know exactly when yet but I'm gonna place it inside of my January folder and then when January rolls around I will sort out the activities based on when I have the time to be able to teach those lessons I can do the same for any of these months if I find something to do for Presidents Day and I can stick it in February until I'm ready to get to that month and then sort when I'm going to use that activity now you're probably also wondering why in the world I have my days all mixed up so the way that it works is that you keep the day that you are currently on upfront so today was the sixth here's the sixth one right here so I am actually done with today when you are done and you've emptied everything ouch which this one is empty then you're gonna place it to the very back now if you look here in January I've started placing the number 1 2 3 4 5 and now I can go ahead and take my six and place it back here I've already gone ahead and placed 8 and 9 because these are weekend dates and I know for a fact that I won't be using them so as you move along I remove the day here as I finish it and then place it behind the upcoming month so I can always plan for a month in advance so if I know something that I'm gonna do when I get back on the second I can go ahead and have those materials ready because I've already passed December 2nd and that folder is ready to go for January 2nd so you continue this as you go as long as I finish up tomorrow which tomorrow is the 7th for me so I have some of my items already prepared here but as I finish up all of the 7th items I will do the same I'll move this and place it behind the 6th for January and I will just kind of keep going but it allows me to really keep all of my things organized so inside of here I will clip things I will paperclip things sometimes I'll have books in here you can see I have other little like anchor chart pieces from the Lucy khun's in here so you can see that I kind of clip everything and then I will just take it out what's really nice about this system is if you have a sub I would simply just take out my entire folder and then I would lay it on my desk and this is what all of the materials that I had for the day was ready for my sub to come in and be able to teach my lessons so it makes it incredibly convenient it's a really easy to kind of maintain and keep track of and the best part about it is that mine is hidden away oh I almost fell on that cheer alright guys so I really hope that you kind of enjoyed this video I hope you were able to kind of get a better idea of how I organize my paper and take my paper flow and really my baby in my classroom the one thing that I kind of hold near and dear to my heart because it really is it is something that really kind of keeps me going no matter all of the other chaos that's kind of happening I feel like this is the one thing that I will always rely on no matter how much everything around me is changing so I hope that you guys enjoyed it make sure to give the video a thumbs up to support the channel everyone also subscribe if you have not already I'm really working on kind of showing you guys some really great videos some content that I think that's gonna benefit you and really help you grow as an educator as a person whatever you want to think about it so thank you guys so much for watching and then I will see you all really soon I

Channel: The Lettered Classroom

Views: 23,488

Rating: 4.9526162 out of 5

Keywords: teacher tips, The Lettered Classroom, classroom setup, classroom organization, a day in the life of a teacher, middle school teacher, education, how to be a teacher, new teacher, the 43 folder system, 43 folder, 31 folder, organization, david allen, how to use the 43 folder system, best way to organize, paper flow

Id: sal2kd6pG5Y

Length: 9min 15sec (555 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 09 2018