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10 Tips to Organize Your Classroom
- Gabrielle Fischer Posted On Mar 16, 2017
Creating a calm, tidy, inviting environment in your classroom can be a challenge. Books, folders, papers, everyday supplies, manipulatives, arts and crafts materials, and games all need to be corralled yet easily accessible in the confines of one room. It’s a big task, but these easy tips and tricks can help you organize your classroom quickly!
10 Classroom Organization Ideas
- Whether you’re setting up your classroom at the beginning of the year, or reorganizing mid-term, take a mindful moment to close your eyes and envision your ideal classroom. What words do you use to describe it? Do you see lots of color-coding and cute, decorative touches, or a space that’s more practical and minimalist? Having a clear, compelling, concrete vision in mind will keep you motivated throughout the process!
- Storage solutions and a few key furniture pieces are essential to having “a place for everything, and everything in its place.” Make sure you have enough bookshelves and file cabinets. Mount wall shelves and hooks so you can take advantage of vertical space (ask for permission first.) Sturdy plastic tubs with lids are versatile and stackable. Many stores now offer these in holiday themed colors—wait until after Christmas or Halloween and scoop these up at clearance prices!
- Storage tubs can also be great for putting a physical limit on the amount of craft materials you keep on hand. Do you know organizers encourage people to declutter their homes by giving all sorts of old items—from half used paints to tiles to toilet paper tubes—to teachers? To keep clutter to a minimum in your own classroom, designate one or two tubs for these materials and feel free to say “no thank you” to any further donations you don’t really want.
- Take advantage of technology to cut down on paper clutter. Use projectors to project student or group work onto a screen, turning desktop projects into interactive opportunities. Then, take photos and videos of the work to save or upload to your class website or virtual learning network.
- You can tame paper clutter and be eco-friendly in low-tech ways too. Use write and wipe supplies to turn every page into a reusable learning activity. Create big, bold signs that allow you to label learning centers and keep activities organized.
- Be sure to set up your own desk just the way you like it, with space for grading student work, an area where you can sit and work with a student one-on-one, and even a designated area for your favorite water cup or mug. Your own clear, tidy desk will be an inspiration to your students.
- Label the pockets of an organization station with each student’s name, so they'll know where to turn in homework, collect handouts, or correspond with you. This can result in a good deal of saved time and effort.
- Display a daily schedule and let everyone know what's coming next. Keep it up for a substitute or use it to head off confusion when schedules change.
- Speaking of substitutes...making a folder for your sub will come in very handy. Make sure to include:
- a document to tell which students sit where
- a schedule of your week (when music is, what time lunch is, etc...)
- an explanation of what you do for classroom management
- a list of teachers that can be helpful and what room they are in
- extra worksheets
- anything else you can think of...
- Keep in mind that there’s a relationship between time and tidiness. If your schedule is too packed, you won’t have time to return everything to the areas you’ve so carefully designated.
Proper Hand Washing Glitter Experiment for Kids!
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Let's LEAP into February 29!
The 2020 calendar gives us an extra day to par-tay! On February 29, we all will be celebrating Leap Day, an extra day at the end of month that only happens every four years.
How will you spend your extra day? With an assist from the Learning Resources’ Magnetic Learning Calendar and Froggy Feeding Fun™ Fine Motor Skills Game, we plan to LEAP into what makes this day on the calendar so unique!
What day is Leap Day?
In 2020, Leap Day falls on Saturday, February 29. Soak up that extra 24 hours…it won’t happen again until 2024. And Leap Day only occurs in the month of February.
Why do we have Leap Day/Year?
Every four years, an extra day is added on to our calendar. Our modern calendar consists of 365 days, but the actual time it takes for the Earth to get around the sun (orbit), is just a bit longer. To make up for that time, an extra 24 hours are built into the calendar every fourth year. 
But why do we call it “leap” year?
The typical year is 365 days, referred to as common years. There are fixed dates for every holiday. For instance, New Year’s Day in 2020 was on a Wednesday. After February 29, 2020, has come and gone, an extra day will be added, making New Year’s Day “jump” one day ahead to a Friday. What a leap! 
Let’s celebrate first by looking at our calendar. The Learning Resources’ Magnetic Learning Calendar gives us a great visual. This year, February starts on a Saturday. 
This calendar serves as a helpful tool for learning about days and months, and is an easy way to include kids on the schedule for the family. Chances are good they have a classroom calendar, so with their own chart at home, they can be the “calendar helper” every day. It is magnetic, has a wipe-down surface, and even features a way to discuss the daily weather!
Next, discuss things that can leap. Kids can leap, and we just learned that days can leap. What about frogs? Yes, frog can leap! In fact, we can’t think of a creature that doesn’t love to LEAP more than frogs! 
But before they do all that leaping, a frog has got to eat. The Froggy Feeding Fun™ Activity Set is an award-winning game that has lots of options to play. It comes with two adorable frog and lots of spongy flies. 
From a sensory standpoint, this activity has lots. The feel of the flies with their soft yet formed shapes make them easy to grasp. They create lots of color in a play space. The first skill to try is opening the frog’s mouth by squeezing the corners.
Once your child gets it down, they might not stop feeding the frog! How many can it fit in its mouth? 
This game focuses on strengthen fine motor skills, but also reinforces math skills. A roll of the two soft dice reveals the color and number that the frog can pick up. Number recognition, color recognition, and counting skills are challenged!
With the frog firmly in hand, you can also work on sorting the flies. Set up a pattern for kids to match. 
Rainbow order is always popular. What color comes after yellow? 
Because there are two frogs, lots can play this game. Let’s try picking up more flies!
Squeezing the frog’s mouth open again and again will improve muscle grip for handwriting down the road. These frogs sure ate a lot. Time to leap back to the pond for a nap. 
What great fun you are, Leap Day! See you again in four years! 
Save it for later!
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