It is second semester, I cannot believe that I am half way done with my first year of teaching!
Paired with the completed semester are handouts, tests, quizzes, re-takes, notes, copies and so much more in an overwhelming stack of papers.
Gulp! What on earth do I do with all of this?? How do I make it better this semester, so I do not have to spend hours sorting, purging and organizing through all the paper at the end?
As with all things, I made myself a cup of coffee – took a deep breath and thought backwards. If the above picture is how I want the end of third and fourth quarter papers to look, how do I store papers throughout the semester?
I took two large binders, a package of sheet protectors, and post it notes – organized the papers we used during the previous two weeks. I now have them stored, easily accessible in order that we have completed them. That way when a student loses a paper, I need to make copies, or at the end of the quarter when a student chooses to complete an assignment – I have access to the paper (labeled with a post it note just as it is written in the grade book).
Going forward, as I hand out an assignment, lesson check, or test – I place the extras in a folder in the absent organizer that I have hung over my storage door. I simply write the post it note then that will follow the sheet at the end of the week to the storage binder and then at the end of the quarter into the file bin.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy!
How do you tame your classroom paper monster? Please share in the comments below. Was this pot helpful to you, please let me know via social media or email – I would love to hear how you used this information in your classroom!
Coffee Girl 
Twenty-three years of teaching, and I still haven’t tamed the paper monster! I’m really thinking of making all of my extra copies digital and placing them in a file in Google Classroom so that it’s the student’s responsibility to find a print a new copy.
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