Bright Ideas: Organizing with Colors

It's that time again for another Bright Idea!

 

In my eleven years of teaching, I have tried many ideas to help with student and classroom organization. One of the things that I have continued through out the years is my color coding for subjects.

My very first teaching job I took over for a fourth grade teacher who went out on maternity leave. I was blown away by how organized she was. One of her systems was that she assigned a color for each of the main subjects. EVERYTHING for one subject was copied, printed, mounted on the color that was for that particular subject. Fast forward 11 years, and I still use that system how it works for me.

 

Take a look at how I color code.

Each subject in my room is represented by a different color.

Reading - Yellow

Math - Red

Science - Green

Social Studies - Blue

Writing - Purple

Language - Goldenrod

 

 

Test reviews, projects, work packets all get copied on the color paper assigned to that particular subject. When taking an assignment out of their folders I will say something like, "Take out your green Science packet." Since they should only have one Science packet at a time it cuts down on the time it takes for them to find it. Now, I don't copy EVERYTHING for a particular subject on colored paper - but I will for the important stuff that I want to have stand out.

Learning Goals on my board - color coded to help students zeros in on the goal for the particular lesson we are working on quickly.

I use these baskets to put my copies for the week/unit in. I really wish the baskets themselves were color-coded but since they can't be I'll just use my pretty labels.

 

I will grade assignments using the color assigned. Except for Reading as it is kinda hard to grade using yellow - hehe. For Reading, I will use pink or light blue!

 

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Thank you for taking a peek into my crazy world!