Classroom Organization Linky Party

Hey everyone!  I have worked and worked this post and finally on Friday, I have gotten it done...two days late.  My mama just went through some major surgery and I thought I would have some time to work on it at the hospital, but I got a lot more family time instead (which is a good thing).  So my mama is out of the hospital today (and doing amazingly well!) and I am about to press "publish" on this bad boy!  Hope you enjoy!

Today I am doing a double-link up party with Miss Kindergarten and Kristen from Ladybug's Teaching Files...we are talking about classroom organization (one of my favorite subjects!).

Miss Kindergarten's Classroom Organization Tips

Ladybug's Teacher Files Optimum Organization

In my district we use Pearson's Calle de la lectura in our bilingual classrooms (Reading Street, in the monolingual classrooms).  We no longer do spelling tests (we do dictados because research says that dications are the best way bilingual students learn grammar and spelling skills), but we do have a phonics focus each week...that's where my phonics centers come in.

I felt that my students were forgetting the phonics skill the week after we learned it and by the time it was test taking time, they had forgotten all about it.  Or even worse, we would learn all about la h muda and I would continue to see "ay" in their writing...ugh!  So I decided to create these phonics centers.  Some teachers might have the students work on the current phonics skill being taught, but I feel I have gotten the most success by having the center out the following week: kind of like a review, but more of an extension of learning.

Second grade Reading Street has 6 units, 5 phonics skills each unit.  That got overwhelming:  I tried envelopes, I tried plastic bags, nothing was working:  In comes Target with their wonderful dollar spot accordion folders.

This is how I can take all of this:

And organize it to this:

 

So, I'll break it down a little.  Each center has these items (this is where the majority of my die-cut obsession goes...):

Each accordion file holds five of centers:

Then I have them stored in one of my cabinets (and yes, I am missing a couple of files in this picture...must have been before I finished unpacking them all).

There you have it!  The way I organize all of my phonics centers (the smaller envelopes hold my literacy centers). I pretty much do the same for my math, writing, and ELA centers.  I spent much of last year making and organizing all these centers (I had a lot, but a lot of holes I needed to fill), so it is going to be nice having them all organized for use this year.

What organization project do you need to tackle or maybe already tackled this summer?