Colour Coding Crazy

I'll admit that perhaps I go a little overboard, but I like to colour code when I can. Use different coloured folders, duotangs, binders, plastic envelopes, sticky flags, and binder clips.

Now, there is no set way to colour code, just pick one way and stick to it. I loosely follow the curriculum documents (which themselves are coloured on the covers) for my main set of colours. Blue is for math, green for science, yellow for language, orange for phys. ed., pink for art, etc. It works for me. You choose the colours that work for you.

So when I have my lessons in the day's folder, I have all of the papers for each lesson clipped together with the right colour clip. So, instead of flipping through, looking for the right lesson, I do a bird's eye view from the top, grab the coloured clip that I want, and I'm ready.

Do you colour code? Do you code by subject or by something else? Do your students need to follow your colour code as well? (Everyone's science work is in their green duotangs?)


Please comment or send your questions to me at organizingteacher@hotmail.com

Have great day!

Valerie :)
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Supply Your Substitute

If you plan ahead for your substitute teacher they will know what to do AND you will not get behind when you are away.

Now I know that sometimes you have no clue that you will not be in the day before, but that doesn't mean you can't be prepared. If you follow a basic weekly plan like we talked about before, then your photocopying for the week will be done. If you then have a folder for each day of the week with that day's lessons and handouts (which you can routinely use yourself) then a substitute can just be directed to the day's folder.

I highly recommend a substitute teacher folder. In this folder have class lists, extra paper, easy activities that the teacher can use (that could possibly tie in to a future unit), notes telling them where supplies and the photocopier are, a seating plan, any tips about certain students, notes about special school policies, notes about your daily and weekly routines and schedules, notes about what to do in a fire drill, your yard duty schedule, and anything else that you think would be helpful for them to know.

Please understand that it is much more difficult for substitute teachers to control the students and they may not get as much done as you would have if you were there, but if you don't leave them a plan to follow then they can't get anything useful done.

And if you are a substitute teacher, please follow the instructions left for you to the best of your ability. But always have a bag of tricks (or binder of activities) in case you aren't left much.


Please comment or send your questions to me at organizingteacher@hotmail.com

Have great day!

Valerie :)
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Organize Right Now blog post

I saw this post on Organize Right Now, and I HAD to share it with you. Her post is about organizing papers that go back and forth from home to work. These ideas can easily be adapted to the teacher's life.



Please comment or send your questions to me at organizingteacher@hotmail.com

Have great day!

Valerie :)
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It's yummy...

In fact, it's delicious! Delicious.com is like bookmarks on your browser, but infinitely better. First of all, it's web-based, so you can access it from any computer just by signing in. (I know, I know, another login.... but if your computer is secure, you can opt to stay signed in for 2 weeks!)

Also, instead of putting your bookmarks into folders that only categorize by one topic, you can tag each website with as many categories as you want! For example, you could tag Organizing Teacher under blog, organize, declutter, ideas, teacher, resource, and more!

I downloaded the plug-in for Mozilla Firefox for using delicious at the click of a button. Now, whenever I'm on a website I want to save, I just click on the tag icon (which is just to the left of the url box) and a new window pops up, all I have to do is pick some tags and hit save. I really like how they pull up a group of your previously used tags and a group of "everyone's" tags to suggest what to tag the site under, you can just click on some options, and/or type in new ones. It's really quite simple.

If you don't want to download the plug-in, you'll have to open a new tab or browser when you want to save a website, log in, cut and paste the url, and then input some tags. It's not difficult this way, but I like having the plug-in.

One more thing, you do have a privacy option, but I like how delicious has lists of the most popular sites, you might find some gems, just browsing there.

I'm sure there are other sites that offer similar services, but this is the one that I found first and use. (It's not broke, so I'm not fixing it.) Feel free to put some links in the comments to other tagging sites that you use.

Please comment or send your questions to me at organizingteacher@hotmail.com

Have great day!

Valerie :)
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