Organization: Teacher Binders

Organization

Thankfully, I consider organization to be one of my strong points.  For the last several years of teaching I have used Erin Condren teacher planners for organizing my student information, lesson plans, and grades.   I absolutely LOVED my Erin Condren planners. Here is my planner from last year:

These planners come in a variety of designs and you can personalize them in many different ways.  This design is one of my all time favorites.  Inside there are pages with inspirational quotes, lesson plans, and student information.   You can find these planners on the Erin Condren website here.  

Here are some other pictures from inside my teacher planner from last year: 

 I decided to spend a little more money last year and add a picture of my family at my sister's wedding in Mexico. 

This is one of my favorite quotes!

This is the lesson plan template available in the planner.  One of the reasons I decided not to get the Erin Condren planner this year was because we switched from handwritten lesson plans to online plans.  Rather than typing the plans into planbook.com and then writing them in my planner, I simply print the plans from planbook.

This is the page for recording student grades and data.  Since we switched to standards based report cards this year, I don't record grades the same way.  Now grades are recorded into the student data notebooks. 

Erin Condren planners are absolutely wonderful! The only downfall is, if you aren't using all of the different features available in the planner, it may not be worth the cost. Therefore, this year, I decided to go back to creating a teacher binder and picking and choosing which resources to put inside. 

  
Here is a sample image of the different pages available in the binder I created for this year.  I put a table of contents at the beginning.  You can write in which resources can be found on which pages.  I then have my class list, and schedules.  I put a "notes" page next to each calendar so I can keep my notes organized by which month they were taken.  Also, there are student information sheets, a parent communication log, general information, usernames and passwords, and a page for recording important dates/student birthdays.  This type of notebook is generic and can be used for any grade level.  If you'd like to download this notebook, it is available for purchase at my TPT store for less than $5! 

Let me show you how I organized my binder!

First I just purchased a white 2-inch binder with the clear sleeves in the front and back, dividers, and clear sheet protectors.  I also purchased some card stock because I decided to print my teacher binder pages on card stock so they would last me the year.  These things are all optional.  The only thing you need is a binder!

On the inside I decided on these sections for my binder: Calendars/Important Dates, Lesson Plans, Student Information, Communication Log, Sub Plans/Information, Rubrics and Standards, and Assessments. 

These are my lesson plans that were printed straight from planbook.com and put into the lesson plans section! 

Behind the "rubrics and standards" tab, I have this rubric.  It is used to assign the students' grades.  These are the power standards we choose last year.

I also keep all of our common assessments (above) for the year in this binder behind the assessments tab along with the pages for the student data notebooks (below).  I put all of the assessments in clear sheet protectors so I didn't have to hole-punch them. You can fit around 10-15 pages in each sheet protector. 

Creating and using this teacher binder has helped me stay organized this year.  It has been wonderful to have all of my important information all in one place.  I also take it with me to meetings or any PD opportunities so all of my notes stay in one place.  I plan to share another post in the future about different ways I stay organized within my classroom. 

I hope some of my organizational tips will help you.  Thanks for reading! :)  Happy Wednesday!