This week was all about organization. Organizing for the classroom, my home files, and Sam’s school projects.
The projects I worked on for the classroom were Day of the Week Drawers, group project material buckets, and my Teacher’s Binder. Once again, I found some ideas on Pinterest to help me with this.
I have tried many organization techniques for my daily materials, but I have not been happy with them. They always ended up looking messy to me. So I was excited when I found teacher organization drawers on Pinterest. The organizers were $4 a piece at Target and the letter stickers were $4 at JoAnn’s. I can’t wait to see how they look on my desk.
I had some letters left over from the first project, so I decided to label the table group baskets I had picked up at the dollar store. These are going to be used to organize special project materials for each group. Hopefully they will make it to my classroom. I keep finding them in Rachel’s bedroom.
Erin Condren lesson planners seem to be all the rage right now. I just couldn’t see spending $59 plus for a lesson planner. It got me thinking about how I am always scrambling for my lesson plan book, grade book, student test data, standards, or meeting notebook. I decided to create an all-in-one-place teacher binder. So I picked up a $4 binder at Target that included dividers, binder pocket, ruler, and binder. Then I hit TPT and started looking at teacher binder inserts for free. I chose:
* Editable Teacher Binder Cover
I also have sections for pacing guides, data reports, and standards. Although this project started out as a lesson planner, I have decided to keep everything I need to lesson plan in it, and I will have a stand alone lesson planner.
I had bags of Sam’s art projects and school work in my closet, next to my bed, and in the garage. Needless to say, this irritated Karl to no end. So I have started going through those bags and organizing them in pockets to be kept on one of my closet shelves.
Now I just need to finish Sam’s pockets and organize the garage this weekend. I’m off to work on my classroom next week!
Fab 4th and 5th Grade 
Great ideas, Emily!