Filing Cabinet Organization & Book Study

It's officially summer time and I haven't a clue how I'm going to use up all my time. There is the obvious: blogging, reading, creating, crafting, traveling, and baking. I know it sounds like a lot but I don't think time wise it will take a lot. Well a birdie told me I'm staying in second grade! This makes me very happy. I love my team teacher, I love second graders, and feel like I may have a clue what I'm doing next year since I've already done it once :) YAY!

Now, I am going to give you a peek into my filing cabinets. When I first moved into my classroom I had two filing cabinets JAM packed with stuff. Guess what? None of it was mine. It took me forever to go through it all and decide how I wanted to organize paperwork and use my filing cabinets. Well the verdict? I strongly dislike filing papers into a filing cabinet. Rifling through manilla folders all bent up is not fun when you can't find the one paper you need. However, going to the correct tab in your three ring binder and flipping through the pages like a book is an easy peasy delight. (i'm not sure peasy is a word - you get my gist). That will be another post for another time. So after contemplating and c contemplating I decided to dedicate one entire filing cabinet to math. Math stations, math literature, math posters/charts, etc. How did I organize all the math stuff? I created file tab dividers for every topic (enVision Math's version of chapters) and every SINGLE lesson. I printed my labels cut them up and put them in file tab dividers and into the correct file folder. This has revolutionized my organization, accessing my resources, and seeing where I could use some resources.  In my other filing cabinet I have one drawer dedicated to my student files. Any important papers or items helpful for parent conferences etc go into the students numbered folder. Another drawer is my Language drawer. It is organized just like my math drawers. I created labels to go with every language concept we teach in the order we teach it. All my language stations, chart, craftivities, etc. go in the appropriate folder. Having every file labeled with the skill makes it easy to file things quickly as well. Then for my last 2 drawers I have my spelling units organized just like math and language. I also typed up a word list for every chapter and printed them on color card stock and laminated them. This is very helpful for spelling stations and practicing. Here are some pictures I have. The captions give you an annotated version.

The first tab in the orange file folder reads: Topic 2 Subtraction Strategies. I know it's a little blurry and I'm not sure why. Anyway every topic/chapter is in an orange folder for math (all the coordinating lessons that go with that topic are in green folders). In the orange topic folder is any general games, math literature, math mats, etc that go with that topics content.

You can see that my filing cabinet has lots of READABLE tabs. No chicken scratch in a rush handwritten tabs. I personally find it to be so so so much easier to type it up print, cut, fold, insert into tab, and then insert tab into file folder. 

This is my bottom drawer. Every drawer holds about 4 topics. I also love this system because it lets me see where I am lacking in materials. The bottom drawer is not nearly as full as my top drawer :( Also, remember I do not keep worksheets, tests, practice pages, etc. in my filing cabinet. I keep them in binders. (Future Post)

Again, another topic folder tab in orange. You can see all the green folders with their own labeled tabs. 

This is the tab behind the above orange tab. It is labeled: 14.1 Building Numbers in the 1,000s 

This is one of the items you would find under the above tab: 14.1 Building Numbers in 1,000s
Inside this envelope is the accompanying anchor chart to help teach this skill that coincides with the math station game. I actually use this as a whole group lesson when I introduce this concept and then I let them do it in stations later. It's always a hit. Games make learning fun!

Also, check out Primarily Inspired. . . she is putting together an awesome book study on Guided Math. Guess what? I'm hosting chapter 4. You must check it out. I almost finished the first chapter and am in nerdy teacher love.