My Very Important "Organization Spot"

One good thing about this testing is that it has given me plenty of time to work on my classroom.  As a new teacher, my decorations, etc., are pretty sparse.  I see all of these classrooms (at school and on blogs) that look AMAZING with all of the decorations, books, games, and so on, and then I wonder why my room doesn’t look like that.  Which has led to me spending tons of time trying to make my room look cuter.  With all of that said, I’m not too worried about the issue of not having enough stuff, simply because I know that having too much stuff will someday be my problem.  It seems that after a certain number of years, all teachers complain that they are drowning in resources.  One day that will be me, but not today!

Long story short, I am learning to be resourceful.  I’m taking what I have and using it to its’ full potential.  Today I want to show you one little area of my whiteboard.

I’ve been thinking about what to call this area…maybe just my “Organization Spot” for all of the little info tidbits I need.  I got the border secondhand from another teacher and it already had magnets on the back…perfect for my board!  Somehow I ended up using only red and blue in this area…totally not planned, but I love it!

Here are some different aspects of my Organization Spot:

Vocabulary for the week (or day).  I already have these on pieces of tape, so after we’re done with those words I can stick them straight to our word wall in the back of the room.

Essential Questions.  Do you use these at your school?  I put them on our intro activity on the computer, but I think it’s good to have them visible all the time.  Obviously there aren’t any questions up right now because we’re not having class!  Although, I guess I could write “How can I cope with testing?”  Seems like a good question!  :]

 

Love bots.  Valentine’s Day is in a couple weeks, and I just couldn’t resist these little love bots in the Target dollar section.  So cute!  And I love how the glare makes the boy bot look like he has angry eyebrows.  He has some angry love.

Schedule stuff.  I have my daily schedule, the specials schedule for a group that I take to specials, and the day of the specials rotation.  I could never keep track of where I was supposed to be if I didn’t have these up there.  I also have my name in this area because I know the kids can’t remember my name.  Maybe seeing it written will help (maybe).  :]

So there you have it—my Organization Spot!  How do you stay organized and on schedule?