Out with the old, in with the new!

Each June I have very high hopes for what I will accomplish during the summer.  During the last few weeks of school, I find myself reflecting on the school year as a whole and what I would like it to be like in the coming year.  While I reflect daily on each lesson, or every so often on how a unit as a whole is going, the end-of-the-year reflection usually brings me back to one specific thing.  Organization.  Why can't I find my rhythm when it comes to organizing student work, student materials, my own materials, and the never ending pile of papers that accumulates on my desk each day?  This year I am on a mission to stay organized and to spend less time tidying up each day because everything will have a place (or so I hope....).

While I find going into school during the scorching hot days of July less than desirable, I also find nothing more exciting than finding my classroom all clean and ready to be put back together.  It is at this point that furniture gets put back in different places, and a new organizational system is born - with hopes that it will be the perfect one.

I'm so excited about these new areas in my classroom:

This great locker used to house books by my favorite authors.  Over time I realized that fourth graders had a hard time reaching the top areas so it is now holding all of my unit binders.  I love these dots on chocolate labels - you can find them here.

I used to spend lots of time cleaning the labels off of each book box and the shelves so that they could have new students names on both.  I've decided that putting each students' number on the box and the shelf is going to save me some time.  I LOVE how the border strips look on the shelves! 

These great drawers will hold copies for each of the subject areas.  Creative Teaching Press chevron border strips came in handy again - I just cut them to size and popped them into the front of each drawer.

I wanted a cute and organized way to hold my monthly read alouds. These great magazine boxes from Ikea were spruced up with a bit of mod podge and scrapbook paper and I love how they turned out!  Good ole' Dollar Tree had these bins which fit perfectly on this bookcase.  Our book club books are now going to be in the bins rather than in a box on top of my cabinet.

These great bins from Michaels now hold all of my worksheets and window decorations for holidays.  

My room is still (and will continue to be!) a work in progress, but I'm loving it so far!