Colored Folders Galore- {Optimum Organization #4)

I can't believe it is the last Saturday of June! Where has the time gone?  Since it's Saturday, you know it's time to link up with Kristen and Elizabeth for the Optimum Organization tips and tricks.  I don't know about you, but I am getting lots of ideas and inspiration as I stalk through the blogs linked up for this linky. I am soooo thankful these ladies decided to host this!

Ok today, I want to share one way I try to help my students stay organized.  I am a color coordinator.  I mean I am obsessive about color coordination.  (There I said it- that's the first step right?)  My students come at the beginning of the year with 5 folders: red, blue, green, yellow and one of their choice.  I used to have the students write the subject on each folder but you know those nice heavy folders with the shiny covers...the marker tends to rub right off, so....in comes my handy dandy folder labels.

(I went through a stage where I was making cute labels for everything under the sun...these I actually kept up).  I pass out a strip of the labels to each student and we put them the top of each folder as we place them in their desks in the order we will do the subjects throughout the day. For those of you interested, I have put these labels up in my TPT store.  They are FREE for the time being.

Now about the color coordination.  We use the red folder for reading.  Anything I print off for the students, I copy on pink paper (red is to dark and hard to read).  They know pink papers go in the red folder.  Science is the green folder and all science papers are green, we use the blue folder and blue papers for Social Studies, the yellow folder and yellow paper is for math and the folder of their choice is for writing (I copy all the things for language arts on purple paper).  The visual match of the paperwork with their folder helps the students know where their things need to be.  When I have students who misplace an item we can tell quickly if it is in the wrong folder because the colors don't match.  It is also helpful for me when papers are in my bag at the end of the day, I can tell at a glance what subject I still need to check at home. Plus if something gets turned into the wrong basket, the color of the paper makes it stand out of the rest and we can find missing work that they know they turned in.

Another place I use color is in my student files.  I use a 3 folder system to store student information throughout the year.  For each student I have a red, yellow and blue folder. (I use numbers on these to make it easy to use year after year and to insure confidentiality).  In the red folder I keep things like IEP accommodations and goals, any behavior write ups, permission slips, our behavior contract, notes from home; basically they are things that only I need to see.  The yellow and blue folders are for student work.  In the yellow folder I keep all the assessments the students complete throughout the year.  I share these at conferences but they don't go home.  In the blue folder I keep pieces of student work from the current trimester.  This folder is also something I share at conferences,  the difference is all the things in this folder go home with the parents. I keep the two separate folders for student work so that I don't accidentally send home assessments that I need to keep at school.

Well, that's my organizational idea for today.  Hope you have a great Saturday!
                                                                        Until next time....