Getting organised
One of the most important pieces of advice for teachers in general is keep your resources organised. I think this should be one of the first things you are told when you begin to study teaching.
During your study and throughout your career you will be shown things, given things and find things that will make you think “Ooooo that’ll be useful for teaching in the future”. 'The future' could perhaps be the next topic you're going to teach, or maybe a unit you'll be doing later in the year, or maybe even next year's class e.g. when you're moving to a different year/grade.
If you don’t put that useful thing in a logical and easy to locate place, one of three things will happen:
These useful things could be:
- physical items e.g. a printed booklet, or a worksheet
- website addresses
- online photos of teaching ideas
- digital documents e.g. a lesson plan file
Starting to organise
Organising things from the beginning means it won't be a big job later. You can start as small as having one ring binder folder rather than storing loose paper.
A great beginning point for a beginning primary teacher is one ring binder folder per curriculum subject, perhaps with plastic dividers inside. You will of course also need a folder for your beginning teach induction and mentoring program.
How I organise my resources
Your organisation system has to work for you so don't feel like you need to copy anyone else's. Because I've been teaching for years I have a lot of things saved. If you're curious, here's how I manage my collection...
A Pinterest account - www.pinterest.com
I have the Pinterest save button as part of my Google Chrome browser. Anytime I see something I'd like to use in the future, I click the button and save it to one of my organised Pinterest boards. This could be anything from a useful website, to a YouTube video, to a photo of an activity, to a resource to download etc. Anything on the internet.
Get the Chrome save button for yourself here. See my example Pinterest account here.
Ring binder folders
In my classroom I have a range of ring binders that I use to store any paper resources I want to keep. They are labelled: reading, writing, spelling, PE, staff meetings etc. (And then because I specialise in maths I have broken that subject down into separate folders. You don't need to be that specific!)
Computer folders
A place for everything, and everything in its place!
During your study and throughout your career you will be shown things, given things and find things that will make you think “Ooooo that’ll be useful for teaching in the future”. 'The future' could perhaps be the next topic you're going to teach, or maybe a unit you'll be doing later in the year, or maybe even next year's class e.g. when you're moving to a different year/grade.
If you don’t put that useful thing in a logical and easy to locate place, one of three things will happen:
- You’ll spend valuable time searching for it later
- You won’t be able to locate it at all
- You'll forget about it completely.
These useful things could be:
- physical items e.g. a printed booklet, or a worksheet
- website addresses
- online photos of teaching ideas
- digital documents e.g. a lesson plan file
Starting to organise
Organising things from the beginning means it won't be a big job later. You can start as small as having one ring binder folder rather than storing loose paper.
A great beginning point for a beginning primary teacher is one ring binder folder per curriculum subject, perhaps with plastic dividers inside. You will of course also need a folder for your beginning teach induction and mentoring program.
How I organise my resources
Your organisation system has to work for you so don't feel like you need to copy anyone else's. Because I've been teaching for years I have a lot of things saved. If you're curious, here's how I manage my collection...
A Pinterest account - www.pinterest.com
I have the Pinterest save button as part of my Google Chrome browser. Anytime I see something I'd like to use in the future, I click the button and save it to one of my organised Pinterest boards. This could be anything from a useful website, to a YouTube video, to a photo of an activity, to a resource to download etc. Anything on the internet.
Get the Chrome save button for yourself here. See my example Pinterest account here.
Ring binder folders
In my classroom I have a range of ring binders that I use to store any paper resources I want to keep. They are labelled: reading, writing, spelling, PE, staff meetings etc. (And then because I specialise in maths I have broken that subject down into separate folders. You don't need to be that specific!)
Computer folders
A place for everything, and everything in its place!