I love being organized. It comes naturally to me, and I truly thrive when I feel in control. This is why classroom organization is an absolute must for me! Does that sound like you? Or maybe it’s who you want to be? Or perhaps you’re convinced that will never be you? No matter where you fall, I’ve got you covered.
Calling all Type A teachers and parents—this blog post is for you! I’m sharing my top 5 favorite ways I’ve become ultra organized in my classroom. Each of these systems or tools has brought me real joy—and yes, even made me smile big! Staying organized helps me feel calm and gives me space to actually process life. Can I tell you something? When I walk into a messy space, I instantly feel anxious. That’s called visual clutter, and it really can trigger stress. And here’s a little honesty: by 2:32 p.m., my classroom desk might be a HOT mess because I’ve been too busy to keep up with it. But before I leave for the day? You better believe my desk is back to thriving.
RAINBOW Organized Desk Area:
Everything has a home—and it’s usually organized by rainbow colors! I color-code each subject to help both myself and my students stay on track. Red stands for Reading, Yellow for Writing and Conventions, Green for Social Studies, Blue for Math, and Purple for Science. (Full disclosure: I treat pink and red as the same color. 😉)
Behind my desk, I use colored bins and folders for each current unit. For example, during our fractions unit in math, all materials go into the blue folder, and my teacher edition lives in the blue bin. When a unit wraps up, everything returns to the filing cabinet, ready for next year.
My rainbow rolling carts hold weekly copies. Before I head out on Friday, I sort everything into the bins. It’s probably my favorite system—it’s visual, easy, and effective. You’ll also notice a tall rainbow organizer under my printer. That’s where I keep any parent-made copies I’m not ready to use yet. My goal is to stay two weeks ahead. Goal being the key word—yes, there are weeks when I’m copying up to the last possible minute!
The Most Simple To Do List
This list changed everything. One Friday afternoon last September, overwhelmed by a sea of sticky notes, I opened a Google Doc, grabbed a cute rainbow template from Pinterest, and created the simplest to-do list ever. I separated my grading from general tasks, which instantly made things feel more manageable.
If you’re a new teacher, here’s a golden tip: grade things as soon as students turn them in. Waiting for a better time? Trust me—it never comes. I’ve made that mistake plenty. Of course, when you’ve got 35 essays, it’s not realistic to finish them all in one day. That’s when I use my “35/5 rule”—I commit to grading 7 to 10 papers a day.
Best part? My to-do list is editable and honestly kind of fabulous (if I do say so myself).
Schedule/Calendar
Do you want to know what the number one thing my students do when they come into Room 35 each morning? They look straight at the schedule. Like me, they want to know what is going on during the day.
Teachers, we are busy and sometimes simple is best.
I used to buy all the fancy planners, which I loved, but I never used most of the papers. While I like to be organized, I am a very simple organizer. I created this very simple planner and it has been going 7 years strong.
Picture Book Organization
When you have 3,000 picture books and counting you have to have some kind of plan or you might have a disaster 24/7.
Here are my tried and true book organization tips:
- All of my SEL (Social Emotional Learning) picture books are grouped together by spine color—because it’s visually satisfying, and I love it that way.
- I start with broad categories (like Biographies) and narrow them down (like Female Biographies). This layered system makes it easy to find exactly what I need.
- To keep track of what I own, I rely on a Google Sheets database. And yes—you can grab either my editable or non-editable version to start your own system! (Read the blog for more!)
If you have an amazing organization tip, I’d love to hear it. Send me an email—I’m always looking to learn from fellow organization lovers!
Looking for better Reading Group Organization ideas? I’ve got you covered!
