Classroom Organizing Systems

As special educators I feel like a lot of us use similiar resources in our classrooms. I always love seeing how other teachers organize the same resources that I'm using in my classroom. My peers are my biggest inspiration for new ideas in my classroom so I thought I would put together a post showing how I organize different resources I use in my classroom.

#1: I most recently shared this one on my Instagram. Organizing file folder activities.

I have been using file folder activities so frequently with my students that I decided I no longer wanted to keep certain themes/holidays in with those containers. I wanted them all out all the time. This allows me to give my students variety day to day and week to week for skills they need continual practice with. There's nothing wrong with using a previous holidays theme in my opinion and can help save me time. I needed someone to keep them and a way to organize them. I love these bins because I can still sort through them and see just what file I need. I cannot do that with the bin I used for the colors file folders, but that's okay. I don't feel like I might be looking for a specific one of those as I may with the others.

Since I shared this photo Teaching Special Thinkers has included cute labels for storing file folder activities! These are way better than my post-it notes AND available for Free in her TpT Store! 

#2: I use cookie trays a little differently in my classroom this year, but still organize them in a similiar fashion. 

This post is from another year, but I still organize them in these bins for the days they are planned for. For the photo above I had a file folder in each bucket with the student's name on it. That was the page they had for morning work on that day of the week. This year, each student does the cookie tray activity that is in the bucket for the day of the week during their 1:1 work time with the teacher.

When not in use I store them in laminated folders like this with the cover page on the front. 

#3: Teaching Special Thinkers has these amazing Easy Art Projects that are my go tos. There are a lot of possibilities for how to organize these, but this is what I came up with. 

I love these pocket folders because they are large enough to hold all of the pieces and if I have leftovers you better believe I am keeping them for the next year! I can then put them in one binder together and use the cover page from the product for the front of my binder. 

#4: Student materials and data are stored in color coded buckets.

I recently shared this in a post about color coding in my classroom but wanted to feature it as an organizing system too! Until this year I kept a file basket with a hanging file folder for each student. I'd keep notes from parents, their behavior calendars, work samples, etc in these files. The downside, I rarely took the time to file it so I would end up with a huge stack of papers on top of my file basket. By keeping all of those same things in student color coded buckets it's easy to stick the items right in their bucket, or in their binder quick and easy. I will never go back to my hanging files! 

What are some ways that you organize items in your classroom? I know there are a few more I wish I had snapped photos of to share with you, but I'll keep those for another time!