Wow Us Wednesday ~ Classroom Organization Link Party!

It's that time of year! We're recharged from summer break and ready to get our classrooms and therapy rooms set up and organized for the new year. I'm always tweaking my organizational and storage systems to try to make the best use I can of my small space and it is so much easier to do when unpacking after summer break.

I love cruising Pinterest and blog hopping to check out classroom organizational ideas. Here are a few of my recent faves.

I took a couple of weekends last spring and converted all my files to binders. Totally worth the time!

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Space Saving Game Storage

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Using photos to cue clean-up.

This blog has tons of great ideas!

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Orlanda and I want to see YOUR space! We thought it would be great to start a Classroom Tour Linky Party right here at the Dynamic Duo so that we can have a one-stop bounty of classroom tour goodness.

So, snap some pics of your classroom or therapy room and post them here. The link party will be open from now until Wednesday, September 4. If you don't have a blog to link to and still want to share your photos, follow the directions here. And make sure to "like" your faves. We will feature the top 3 "liked" entries in a follow-up post.

We will start the party off with a quick tour of our rooms.

Here's Kelley's SCORES (Social Communication & Resource Program) room. My room was designed to be a physical therapy/occupational therapy room. It is divided into two parts with a glass wall in the center. I have placed the sensory area on the larger half of the room and the academic area on the smaller half. It is definitely cozy, so we have to be very diligent about keeping it clutter-free and using space wisely. For storage, I have brought in a few bookshelves and melamine cabinets from home and am able to stash them in a little alcove right outside of my classroom. I'm so lucky that my administration lets me do this. Otherwise, I would be a crazy person!

My room is set off down a short hallway right off the front entrance from our school. 

We have a welcome sign to let folks know where to find me and my TA (Mrs. McBride ~ who is BRILLIANT and I couldn't live without her!)

My make-it-work-in-the-hallway storage system for social thinking/behavior tools and all the literacy materials...

Shelves for math materials...

Our awesome Playmobil school for role playing and wire drawers with stress balls, puppets, & carpet spots. Under the blue tablecloth is our makeshift kitchen (mini fridge, microwave, and rubbermaid drawers full of snacks).

Our sensory area.... we LOVE the cocoon swing from IKEA - it is so much cheaper than specialty catalogs and so great for those calm down moments we all need sometimes! I do need to pump the seat back up - a student told me yesterday that it was hurting his "leg pits". So funny! The shelves contain books, fine motor activities, visual and auditory activities, and a "cloud sand" tray.

Our yummy calm down tent & hippity hop ball. The tent is filled with a blanket, pillow, beanbag chair, and a handful of stuffed animals. The big stuffed animals are filled with beans to serve as a calming weighted item.

A computer for my Teaching Assistant and the students to share. You can see through the little doorway our academic learning area.

On the academic side of the room I have my work nook. I try hard to keep down the clutter and visual noise, but it is hard! A big goal of mine this year is to TRY to keep my desk clean. It's day 3 of school and I'm not being very successful thus far. :(

As you can see, we keep our florescent lights off and have lamps scattered around both sides of the room. It is so much more calming! Here is the work area and storage for currently-being-used materials for academics and social thinking groups. On the side of the cabinet we are trying a stamp card this year instead of a sticker chart for showing whole body listening during groups.

Here's Orlanda's Speech/Language Therapy room...

Here are the friendly guidelines for our get-together:

·  When you link up, please grab our button and include it somewhere in your post. You can find it on the sidebar. Thanks!

·  Please check out other great bloggers and leave them some comment love!

·  Please make sure that your link is directly related to a classroom tour, organizational tip, or organizational product.

·  Please join the Dynamic Duo as a blog friend. Follow us by email (on the sidebar) or through your blog reader. That way you can make sure to get the most up-to-date posts.

So, get your classroom tour ready and join the party!

My Favorite Lesson Planner

I've never been able to use a lesson plan book because there are not enough compartments in the day. I teach anywhere from 6-10 lessons a day depending on the schedule. I've tried various ways of lesson planning in the past, but I finally found a system last year that worked well for me. I created a template from a simple Word document so I can add or delete columns each semester as needed.

This year I had to add a second page. I now have one page with academic lessons...

and one for Social Thinking Groups...

I hole punch the pages each week and hang them with notebook rings on the front of an open file box.

The box contains info that I need at my fingertips. I like this system because it keeps the lesson plans within sight. Since Orlanda and I co-teach social groups, she can also view the lesson plans if I am held up with a student issue.

If you'd like to use this template, feel free to download it here.

I'd love to hear about how you write your lesson plans. Please share your ideas in the comments!

Please join as a follower if you haven't already! 
~Kelley

Tips for Organizing Small Classroom Spaces ~ Part Two!

This year I moved out of my spacious, mansion-like classroom....

                  Which looked a little like this...

Ok... maybe not, but in my fond memories I had unlimited storage and didn't have to store things in stacks like the leaning tower of Pisa. 

With our school growing quickly and bursting at the seams I knew it was only a matter of time until I needed to move out of the big classroom and find a "cozier" space that would work. I offered to move into the OT/PT combo room that was currently used as a PTA workroom. 

I spent a lot of time this summer purging and organizing materials and hauling a few storage shelves and cabinets up to school. Thankfully, there is a small alcove outside my room where I was able to fit the shelves and cover them with curtains to mask the materials. 

The classroom itself has an interesting layout. The "bigger" side is about 10x12 feet and adjoins a smaller space with a glass wall. I decided to make the bigger side the academic side and create a Sensory Center in the smaller side.

Because the space is so small, I wanted to be very careful to keep the distraction level low by limiting the amount of "visual noise". I deliberately left as much off the walls in the academic side as I could -- only keeping up the alphabet strip, number strips, expectations poster, the size of the problem visual, and the posters that define expected/unexpected behavior.

Here's what it looks like as you enter the room...

I created the layout by considering "zones". As you enter the room, I created a new behavior reinforcement system on the side of the file cabinet. I love racing, so I decided we would race to the treasure box. The kids cut out and colored race cars, I laminated them, and placed an adhesive magnet on the back.

In the academic portion, I have a small table with the fridge and microwave on top. Under the blue skirt I have hidden the Playmobil School set. We use the school for role plays and problem solving. My desk is to the right with a curtain over my bookshelf to decrease distractions. I strive this year to keep the piles under control on my desk. I can't say I'm being very successful so far!

I didn't take a picture of the school set under the curtain, but if you ever get a donation of money this is so worth purchasing! I totally lucked into getting it.

Because I didn't want to have the walls get too "busy" and because I teach so many different grade levels, I decided not to put up a word wall or other large anchor charts. Instead, I use a wooden paper towel holder on the table and put all the anchor charts in sheet protectors. It allows me to immediately display what we need to view for a lesson without the visual noise. I found the idea on Pinterest - of course! We have also created personal word walls that are stored in folders. This way I can customize for different grade levels and the kids tend to use them more effectively by having them right in front of their view without having to track from their seat to the wall.

The sink area is the only built in area in the classroom. I use the cabinet door to display the size of the problem visual. I added the short curtain on the door because the kids tend to be distracted by the traffic in the hallway. It is still low enough that adults can look in the room.

You can see the glass wall along the computer side of the room. I added white sheer curtains to decrease distractions while still allowing the light in from the one small window.

You can see the white panel curtain that divides the two spaces on the right. I hung a donated curtain panel on a shower curtain rod and created a tie back with ribbon and notebook rings which can be hung on a 3M removable hook. 

I keep the curtain closed to indicate when the area is "closed" or when I have groups with especially distractable students.

Here is the view from the doorway into the Sensory Center.

Yes, the fabric on my homemade Superflex bulletin board is sagging. I need to make time to haul out the tall ladder and fix it. There were no bulletin boards in my rooms, so I created this one from lightweight materials from Home Depot. I'll do a post soon on what to use to make your own bulletin boards.  The shelves hold fine motor activities.

Here is the view of the tent and the Learning Zone area...

Here is the side with gross motor equipment. The red stool hides video games that are used as motivators for specific students. The white wire cart contains puppets and stress balls. The hippity hop sits on top of the unit.

Here is a quick view of the bookshelf, tv for video games, peapod, and trampoline. This is the lone window in the space. It looks out on the kinder playground. You can see my favorite element in my space -- my student created Social Detective. Love him!

So many of us teach in small spaces. I hope some of these ideas get you thinking about how to reduce visual noise in your space. ~ Kelley