Color Code Your Teaching Materials to Stay Organized!

A couple of years ago I had an "Aha!" moment while at a study group.  One of my colleagues was sharing a research lesson she had been working on with her students and the pages were each a different color - pink for planning, yellow for note-taking, green for writing.  "Stop.  Get Ready.  Go."  Aha!  Brilliant.  When kids are working from a packet from week to week, you can say, "Open up to the yellow page..."  This can be a real time-saver when you are teaching 30-45 minute classes!

This idea has helped me with my research projects too.  And it has helped helped me get organized with my 3rd, 4th & 5th grade classes in a different way.  I usually teach these classes in 30 minute sessions, one right after the other and often we are working on the same topic, just at a different level.  Masses of white worksheets would get mixed up and lost in the pile on my work station pretty fast!  Now I use a different color paper for each grade:  green for 3rd grade, blue for 4th grade, & purple for 5th grade.  This makes it so much easier to keep things straight!

I've extended the color coding to all of my grades and try to keep the colors close to the order of the rainbow to help me remember.  K = red, 1st = orange, 2nd = yellow. I buy pocket folders in those colors and have folders for each class.  I keep the folders stored in the order that I see the classes each week so I can stay organized.  Inside the folders I keep a class list, a running list of lessons we completed and where we left off, a seating chart, and any activity pages we are using.

With 21 classes on a fixed schedule and nearly 500 students, color coding my teaching materials has really saved my sanity!   What tricks do you have to help busy school librarians keep organized?  Help us all out by sharing your ideas below!

Be well and have fun!