organizing

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Home : 2006 : February : 19

organizing
By apple annie

I don't know what grade you teach, so I guess your system depends on that. I teach second - all subjects, but only 22 kids. We send all graded papers home once a week to be signed. I came up with a much improved system
this year. I have a box from Office Depot that looks something like a milk crate, that holds hanging folders. I have one set of green folders labeled #1 through #22. After I grade and record a set of papers, I file them into each students folder, or I leave them on top of the box and the aide who comes in does it for me. I keep the box on an old flat top student desk I found in our

school storage closet. It just sits right next to my desk.

When "signed paper day" (Tuesday) comes around, I just pull each student's set of papers out and staple them together. The kids have an envelope that they slip them into after they look them over on Tuesday afternoon. I have another set of yellow folders also labeled #1 through #22, which I use as student portfolios, to put in selected work samples, and other portfolio materials. I have a plastic folder that has six pockets in it which I use to put sets of ungraded papers in. When kids have a test or a graded assignment, I make them keep it at their desks until everyone finishes. Then I call out students' numbers to collect them all at once in number order.

I had to start this method because I kept having missing work for students who shoved the paper in their desk, forgetting to put it in the in-box. I just slip each set of finished work in my folder to grade later. I just grab it and my grade book on my way out the door, and grade at home.

I have a basket on my desk for everything else, and I just sort through it as I have time. I have a mailbox on the wall for my kids to put in notes from home, which I check each day. I like this idea because my kids give me lots of little happy notes and pictures in my mailbox, too.

And finally-- my mantra this year is "The trash can is my friend!";)