Classroom Craziness

For all the people who keep saying I am so organized I would like to show you this picture. I am seriously disorganized person! I am well prepared and always ready to go but I stink at putting things away. This why to date I have put in 72 hours of work in my classroom this summer. Not counting all the countless hours of cutting of lamination at home. Every thing is this way because they are waxing the floors this weekend and then clearing off the carpets to shampoo them. And school starts on Tuesday! AHHHHHH! Craziness! Most of my time this summer has been organizing my stuff. I really want to feel like everything has its on place this year. We shall see. I know I have shown some of my organizers in a previous post. Thanks to pintrest I feel like I will have a productive year. 

And one more picture to brag about. This is my Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree from when I taught at Davis Elementary. I have to brag about it since this is the last year I will be Miss Peiffer. I take all the kids pictures and attach them to the tree with letters of the alphabet. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is one of my favorite Kindergarten books. I love to read it to the kids and I even have the stuffed tree with velcro letters! I also found palm tree boarder at Lakeshore one year to put around the whiteboard!

Papers, Papers, Papers

This weekend I took some time to finally finish filing all my papers. I started at the beginning of the summer but I got sidetracked. I knew I needed to finish if I wanted to get my fiance to help me carry it into school. I know he was getting tired of school stuff taking over our apartment. This is the before picture.

I amazingly carried the very full bin to my car despite the fact that I was in pain, which turned out to be me having my appendix removed that night! O the dedication of a teacher! 
I like to use the accordion folders for my filing system. I have a folder for each subject, math, language arts, social studies, favorite authors and books, and themes and holidays. I started by sorting everything into piles. Then I made the tabs to go along with each topic. This way when I need to teach something I can go right in a pull it out. I found this to be helpful with moving schools and rooms and such. It is a portable filing system. It was also nice that I could take it home this summer and work on it while I was watching TV. 

I also have two filing crates. I use these to store file folder games. I spent a lot of time this summer laminating and assembling the games. I put each topic in it's own hanging folder. This way it will be easy to access throughout the year. Now I just have to remember to use them. Here are my files all neatly organized and put away! 

A Peek at my Room

It's time for the final countdown (you should be singing this!) I have been trying to make a dent on the never ending to do list. With the craziness of construction and school starting in two weeks I feel like I am spinning in circles. I have completed Kindergarten assessments and put together a binder to keep all the data in. I am excited about picking my class list but I am still waiting to put names on things, in case there are any last minute changes. I thought I would share a few things I have been working on in my classroom. 

 This is the new shelf my dad gave me to put up in my room! It's going behind my desk when I rearrange my room. I am hoping to be more organized this year. On the top shelf I have a magazine file for each day of the week to put my copies in. 

Thanks to pintrest and teacherspayteachers I bought this supply organizer at Lowes (only $16.99). I haven't quite finished filling it yet with all my supplies but I thought I would snap a picture. I know it drove my assistant crazy last year when I would shove all the supplies in a big drawer!

Another organization idea I am using is to use this 3 drawer organizer for all the papers that are constantly sitting on my desk. It will be easy to temporarily store them as Copy, File or Laminate. I may make the labels cuter later on but after working for hours I threw this together.