Welcome to Day 4 of my classroom organisation series of posts. Today I'm talking about getting your students' belongings under control!
Your next task is
to organise your students’ belongings and the stationery supplies for the
classroom.
Let’s start at
the beginning of the day. Where
will the students put their belongings when they first arrive for the school
day? If they have pegs, lockers or
cubbies, it is important to take the time to label them. This serves a dual purpose – no
squabbling over storage each morning and if there is mess or belongings left
behind at the end of the day, you know who is responsible.
The easiest way
to do this is to get on your computer, print out labels on your coloured paper
and laminate them. Then they are
easy to Blu-Tack into position (and easy to remove at the end of the year,
which is also something to consider!)
Next, let’s sort
out their stationery in the classroom.
This part of
setting up your classroom can either be made easy or difficult depending on
where your students get their stationery supplies from. At some schools, students have to order
their own stationery and they bring it to school on the first day. This is the difficult option because
inevitably, students turn up with an assortment of things (some needed, some
not) and you need to spend a large amount of your first day going through it
with them sorting it all out. At
other schools, the students pay a stationery levy as part of their fees (or
paid for by the Government) and their supplies are delivered in bulk, straight
to the school.
Personally, I
prefer the second of these two options because it means that I can get
everything sorted, labelled and arranged around the classroom before the first
day of school.
Either way,
you’re going to need to be prepared to sort out lots of stationery, whether it
be on the first day of school or before school starts.
Like everything,
there are lots of different ways of doing it, none more right or wrong than
others, and it does largely depend on the furniture and storage options
available in your room. Some rooms, for example, will have desks with a tray for
students to store their belongings in, while others will have a bank of
trays. Some might have no student
storage at all.
Before labeling
any storage, I suggest that the first thing you do is work out which books are
going to be used for which subjects.
To do this, it is best to check with one of the other teachers who teach
the same year level as you or other teachers in the school. Sometimes the previous teacher may have
left you samples of student work to refer to or sometimes you might be the only
one teaching a particular year level, so you can decide things for yourself.
Once you have
decided which books you’ll be using for what, get back on your computer and
print out book labels with the students’ names, subject and class on them (in
your chosen font). Pick different colours for different subjects, as this will
make it easier for you and your students to visually recognize the books.
When it comes to
storing the books in the classroom, I like having students’ books grouped by
subject and stored in plastic boxes or crates around the room. The students always hand their books
into a central ‘Work to be Marked’ box at the front of the room and when I’ve
marked their work, I can just return it all to the subject box (such as ‘Maths’
or ‘Literacy’), ready for the next lesson. If I need to quickly refer to their work for a particular
subject, I know right where to put my hands on their workbook.
The plastic
boxes/crates I use can be bought cheaply from discount shops and can be labeled
according to subject, using colours that match the labels on the books and
sticky plastic contact. You want
to make it easy for students to be able to locate their books around the room,
as this will help them to develop independence and autonomy.
Moving on now to
smaller stationery items, like pens and pencils. If students don’t have
individual pencil cases, I recommend you invest in some ‘Table Caddies’. These are plastic containers from
hardware or homewares stores. They have a handle on them and various sections,
meant for holding tools or bathroom products. In the classroom, however, they are a great way to ensure
that students on every table always have the stationery that they’ll need for
the day without fussing around with pencil cases and arguments over whose pencil
is whose. You could fill them with
pencils, coloured pencils, erasers, sharpeners, glue sticks, scissors and
rulers and assign a monitor on each table to ensure that it is always
sufficiently stocked.
Any extra
stationery items will need to be stored, preferably in a cupboard or
drawer. Coloured paper and card
works well stored in shallow drawers, as it keeps it flat but it is still easy
to see the different colours available.
Getting more plastic tubs or trays, can help you to separate smaller stationery
items, like staples and bulldog clips.
Print labels onto your coloured paper, laminate them and blu-tack them
onto the outside of each cupboard will also help you to quickly identify what
is stored in which cupboard, without having to open all the doors to see.
I feel I should
also mention at this point, that coming up with storage solutions doesn’t have
to be expensive. Empty cereal
boxes cut on the diagonal make great A4 workbook storage and look nice if you
cover them with some wrapping paper first. Smaller boxes from washing powder or plastic margarine tubs
covered in coloured sticky plastic work too. There are loads of different
stationery storage options – just look at the furniture in your room, the space
available for storing things, your budget and fit your supplies in accordingly.
Finally, tomorrow I'll be talking about organising your teachers' desk, ready for the year to begin!
