Made it Monday: Binders for School and Vacation Plans

  I knew I needed to clean out my binders and make some changes for the 2014-15 school year.

Look at this mess!!!!  Our building is closed for the summer (cleaning and NO air conditioning).  I happened to drive by last week, and the front door was open.  I begged and begged, and  I was able to run into the building and clean out my file cabinet.

This is six years worth of crap files!  A BIG MESS!!! I recently read A Teeny Tiny Teacher's blog about organizing binders and I took the PLUNGE!    I took everything home and began sorting.  My goal was to have mostly binders.  I still have a few file folders, but they are just for random things that are important enough to save, but don't fit in any of my categories.

These are my binders (not all are pictured, because I need more binders).

My binder categories are:
Guided Reading
Comprehension
Phonics
Phonemic Awareness
Assessments
Collaboration
School Improvement
Progress Monitoring
Data
Letters and Sounds
Literacy Work Stations
Coaching
Staff

I just laid out all the binders.  If I didn't have a binder, I made a piece of paper with the title.  Then I started sorting. This was early, early in the process.  My living room floor was completely covered in papers.  I also was able to go through my files and I had quite a few duplicates and quite a few things that just needed to go to recycling ASAP!

Once I sorted, then I began putting documents in page protectors.

Since I did all this work on my binders, I felt like I should keep the same system electronically.  My files are all in folders that match the same title as my binders!  I love it :)

This didn't take as long as I thought.  Now my binders match my electronic file folders and life is organized!

I finally got everything planned for our road trip!  I cannot wait.  I'm such a nerd.  In PowerPoint, I made slides and then saved them as a PDF.  I have all the information and addresses about every place we plan to visit :)  Here are a couple of slides.