Organization Week: Where I Store Things

Today at Mrs. Patton's Patch is "Where Should I Store Things?!?!?!" week (punctuation added by me :).  I must confess that last year I was of the "Put the $&*^ in any open cabinet, close the doors, and run away" camp, mostly because a) I was pretty much a hot mess teacher all year and had no energy left to organize, and b) I had no idea WHERE anything should go!!!

Thankfully I finally have a few systems worked out for all of the crazy amounts of STUFF in the room!  Here are our shared supply shelves:

I keep little tool boxes with extra crayons, colored pencils, markers, pens, etc. here.  On top are lined paper, white construction paper, and a tub of scrap paper (aka remains from Miss Teacher's many copy machine errors...)

This storage cart is in the front of the room under our board.  The top drawer has our dry erase boards, expo markers, and "erasers" (aka squares of fleece).  The other two drawers have our glue, scissors, and rulers.  I like to keep them communal, but it's always a fight!  My 5th graders are always trying to sneak them back into their desks...next year I might just give in and let them keep it all...Why fight it, honestly?  

Other supplies are kept in my storage closet.  These were very messy and disogranized until recently when I started putting everything in bins.  I don't have bins for my units or anything (in 5th grade a file folder will usually do!!  We aren't as cutesy as primary!!),  but these bins are for my cleaning supplies, party supplies, craft supplies, and all of the extra notebooks and folders I have.  I also keep my extra name tags, etc. in here so they're handy when I get one of our (frequent) move-ins.

That's about it for storage, but I HAVE to share with you my all-time favorite teacher store purchase.  I bought these magnetic pockets from Lakeshore before I started teaching and am obsessed with them.  The kids turn in everything to these babies.  I stick them along the bottom of the board every morning under my Morning Message and write on the board above each pocket what should be turned into it.  Result?  Neatly sorted homework!  Then, throughout the day I will put up a pocket for things to be turned into.  It's also nice to be able to just grab one off the board and throw it in my bag to take home and grade.  I would recommend these 100%.