New Year, New Tips

Happy, Happy New Year! 2016 was a crazy year and ended on a very positive note. Cheers to 2017 and what this new year can bring.

Everyone hears the whole New Year, New Me saga, but it is a great time to start something new. I was terrible about blogging last year and I want to make it a point to blog and get my thoughts out there more often. My thoughts might be small and short at times, but it doesn't hurt to share. Sadly, before we know it we will be writing/reading end of school year posts and then Back to School posts. Time flies and we should document the great (and maybe not so great) times we have. I was writing over at the Kinder Tribe blog and I thought I'd share my ideas on organization to get the second half of the school year ready.

Organization can mean a number of things for you, your teaching BFF next door/across the hall, or the loud voiced teacher that needs to close her door because she gets so into her read-alouds (maybe that's just me?? LOL). To me organization is something huge and/or something tiny. Whether you're cleaning off a few papers on your reading group table from September (hey, no judgement) or completely revamping your classroom library so it makes sense for you and your kids...IT WORKS and you can make it happen.

Now, I'm still on Christmas Break for another week few days (where did the time go?! #Denial) and I cannot deny that thinking about school has been the last thing on my mind. I haven't touched my school bag and I probably have the start of some dust bunnies on my beautiful Erin Condren planner, but that's what break is for, right? I scroll through Instagram and I see so many teachers working on so many amazing things to get themselves ready to go for the second half of the year, which gets my wheels turning. Yes, they might only be turning between shopping trips and SVU episodes, but they're still turning.

A very simple organization tip that I do at the end of Christmas Break is get the new school supplies out of my tubs and ready for the kids to come back to. They do not get all new supplies, but they will get new crayons, glue sticks, and pencils/erasers. I KNOW I am not the only one whose kids end up with roughly 11 half-broken (possibly half-eaten) crayons by Christmas. I mean, half of my kids haven't seen their black crayon since about Halloween...possibly before then. During Back to School time, I purchased these crayon boxes at Walmart for $1.00 per box (link is not through Walmart).

These have been LIFE SAVING! They fit 24 crayons perfectly and they fit so well in my supply caddies for my table groups. I use the standard supply caddies from Really Good Stuff.

To make my life (and their life) a little easier, I realized the 2"x4" shipping labels fit PERFECTLY on the boxes. 

Add some clipart and a few cute fonts and VOILA, they're ready to go. There's nothing quite like the smell and look of fresh out of the box Crayola Crayons. 

What do you like to do to get organized?