Utilizing Color for Classroom Organization

As I set up my classroom for a new year, classroom organization is always one of my big focuses. I like to think that I am organized by nature; my mind organizes my thoughts and I function better when everything has a place 😉

Classroom Organization With Color

As part of the Astrobrights Papers Colorize Your Classroom Challenge, Astrobrights is hosting four classroom challenges: classroom decor, classroom organization, differentiated instruction, and memorization. ColorizeYourClassroom.com also gives teachers a go-to source for inspiration and ideas on how color can help transform your classrooms.

As the second classroom challenge, Astrobrights has asked me to share with you all how I use color for classroom organization. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to share and then remembered that organizing is my jam and this wouldn’t be difficult at all 😉 #teacherproblems

Below are a few ideas on how I’ve used color in my classroom to maximize my classroom organization.

In the past, I have used colored tubs to organize our daily work.

{flashback to my first classroom #awww}

They were functional, but I didn’t love them. I disliked the way the papers would curl from being upright, and not everything for the day fit into the tubs. Also, if the papers were taken out of the tubs, I didn’t know where they belonged without looking at my plan book. It was organized but still needed some tweaking.

A few years ago, I moved into a new classroom with tons of cupboard space! #teacherheaven

My co-teacher and I used the tall cabinets to store all of our materials for the week. I love having the shelves because we can lay all the work flat, and we can
also store the books we will use for read alouds and any tubs for
manipulatives. I made colorful labels to help us keep our daily work organized! Of course, I had to add a cute ribbon to attach each label onto the
shelves. I just hole punched the label and wrapped the ribbon around the
metal rungs.

{Sorry for the glare…hard to get a great picture when things are laminated!}

Each day has it’s own shelf, with everything we need to make the day successful! This really helped with the curling paper problem, and held all of the
materials for the day, but stacks of lost papers were still a problem!

So I figured out a way to use the color to help us stay organized! Colored paperclips!

As I’m sorting our work for the week, I match the paperclips to the labels on the shelves. As you can see below, the blue paperclip stack is for Friday, and the yellow paperclip stack is for Wednesday!

At the bottom of the cabinet, we have baskets to help keep our work for each theme organized. We make copies ahead of time to stay on top of things, so it’s nice to have a specific place to put all the copies. As the year goes on, I will just change out the labels for different themes.

{so much more appealing than the post-it notes that continually fell off last year!}

The fonts I used were inspired by the talented Ashley from Teach, Create, Motivate.

I downloaded her teacher toolbox labels and loved them so much, I had to make coordinating labels for my shelves.

Is this not the cutest thing you’ve ever seen!? I love how I have a place right behind my desk to store all of my supplies. I purchased the toolbox at Lowes and spray painted it that pretty mint color after seeing Aris’s toolbox.

I also LOVE using color against a black background. It really makes the colors pop and looks so great. I found these awesome editable labels from Amy Groesbeck and used them to label the plastic drawers at my volunteer table.

The top drawer holds all the papers that need to be copied, the middle drawer is where the masters go after being copied and the bottom drawer holds pencils, post-its and staplers etc. It makes it so easy to see what needs to be done and what has already been copied. Plus, it looks super cute 😉

Lastly, I am using color to help organize our classroom supplies. I love using colored caddies at each table so I can call the tables by their color name. It really helps my students learn their colors and understand where I need them to be. Over the years, I’ve been able to collect enough colored scissors to match the colored caddies. This helps to make sure that all the scissors go back to the correct caddies too. I put two caddies on each table since we all share supplies. Such a pretty sight!

I hope these ideas helped you think about ways you can use color to help with your classroom organization this year!

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