Job #1: GET ORGANIZED!

A couple of weeks ago when I started this blogging journey I wasn't sure exactly what to expect.  What I've come to find is that one thing it does is make me accountable.  I wrote a blog post about things new teachers should and shouldn't do.   One of the things I put on the list was be organized.... ummmm if you've met me you know I'm not the best at this. So how could I possibly be telling people to get organized if I wasn't myself! So this led to my first job in my classroom to get ready for back to school.  GET ORGANIZED! While I wasn't really excited about this, the more I did the more excited I got because I realized just how much easier things would be! The first step for me was my cabinets.  I needed to go through them and get rid of anything I hadn't used in the 3 years I have been in this classroom. When I first moved to this room I did a MAJOR purge to get rid of some of the cabinets that I didn't want, but I still had more I could get rid of. Some of those, oh that's cute... I'll use that, but never did, type of things.  

I have this GREAT wall of cabinets above my cubbies! I love them, but they needed some work! I also have three of these hideous lovely, orange cabinets.

Here are the before pictures of a few cabinets. 

EEEKKKK!!! I'm embarrassed for everyone to see those hideous things! 

There are four simple (but they'll take a while!) steps to get organized.  

1. Buy some sort of containers to put your junk supplies in.

The day I started working on organizing things my mom and I headed to Wal-Mart and Dollar Tree to find some boxes to help with the organization of these cabinets. I found some cute colored boxes and clear boxes at Dollar tree and some large crayon boxes at Wal-Mart. I had several baskets and such at school as well.  I knew I wanted mine to be able to stack so I bought ones with lids. 

2. Pull EVERYTHING out!  

In order to go through your cabinets and get rid of things and sort you have to know what is there.  I started with my art cabinet. I knew I wanted to use the colored boxes in this cabinet so I laid them out on the table and began to organize items into them as I was pulling them out of the cabinet and also making a trash pile and pile for other teachers to go through (we are big on digging through each others discarded things at my school. haha). Here is the finished cabinet! My new teaching partner with my mom and I was also the girl who covered my maternity leave and was very organized... she was impressed. :) She noticed the labels first thing! 

 Art supplies on the bottom, puzzles in the middle and yarn/balance/and screening materials on the top. Colored boxes are from Dollar Tree.


I continued this process for the rest of the cabinets I wanted to go through. Putting like games, and products together.  Games from TPT don't come neat and organized in a box (but I love them still!) so I needed to find better organization for them. I also had some things that could come out of the box, or be combined into another box. 

It gets worse before it gets better....

 

3. Throw out old junk!

Most of us aren't the first ones in our room going through only our things.  There have been SEVERAL people in this room before me. So not only am I going through junk I've accumulated, I'm going through theirs as well.  If i haven't used it in the past three years I've been in this room I threw it out (ok maybe not everything.. but lots!). Yes we have good intentions for the 80 baby food jars our cousin gave us, or the 32 egg cartons but really?! Are you going to use it!?

4. Put it alllllll back!

So after you have done 1-3 you're ready to put it all back.  Figure out how you want it put back.  I organized by cabinet; language arts, word work, books (not pictured) math, art supplies etc. I also added labels (also, not pictured!) so that I would know what was in each tub that I couldn't see directly into. 

The finished cabinets

 Puzzles and art supplies

 Word work cabinet

Language arts centers

Math centers (and a few language arts that didn't fit in the other cabinet!

More math centers/supplies. 

Games and individual CD players/ headphones.

Colors materials on top shelf, stamps/foam and Mailbox magazines in the middle, Whisper phones and crayons on the bottom.

This large shelf holds all of my math manipulatives so they are easily accessible for me and my class.  Clear boxes are all from Dollar Tree. 

I also took pictures of each cabinet and made a list to keep in my plan book so I can refer to what I have while I'm planning because it never fails... I always forget the perfect game that would have gone perfect with our topic! 

My desk/table area was next on the list.  I don't have a before picture because it all had to be shoved into a cabinet put away before summer break, but here it is ready for the upcoming school year! I bough the wire rack at a teacher sale, (each self is going to have days of the week binder clips, with the bottom being extra supplies or for the next week.) the silverware dividers at Shopko, and lamp at Dollar General. Be looking for a blog post around the first of September for a look at my WHOLE room and NEW blog design!! I cannot wait!