Keeping it Simple: All in One, Student Binders!!

After moving into a much smaller classroom this year I needed to have a plan on how I was going to help keep myself my students organized. In the past, I had individual binders at each center. I liked this because no instruction time was lost. The students showed up to the center and could start working instead of having to run back to the last center to grab their binder. With my new space there was no way I could do this, so I decided to make 1 binder for each student. Keep reading to see what I included and how they are organized!

Last year I used wall schedules....again with the smaller classroom this just wasn't an option. I have the schedules set up so they are the first thing the student sees when they open their binder. I have a variety of levels in my classroom so student schedules vary from student to student. For my students who still have velcro schedules I have included a pocket on the inside cover for them to put their schedule pieces when they are completed.

In the past I have used these behavior management boards. While these boards are great they are no longer functional for my classroom. I decided to create an all in one work time visual chart and thought it would be perfect to put inside the student binders. Each student will be able to see the work time expectations, have access to common work time questions and have the opportunity to work for a reward. You can grab this work time visual along with my rules pack for FREE here! 

  In the reading section I keep these Reading Response Sheets. For our reading instruction we do a close read model so I read the same story for an entire week. Each day we focus on a different part and the students use the response sheets to show their understanding.

I also include there weekly assessment and these Monthly Comprehension sheets for my students to complete during teacher time.

 Most of my students have functional/fine motor writing goals so we work on writing throughout the day in a variety of ways. One thing that we do consistently is respond to our Daily Journal Questions. These are leveled so each student has the opportunity to practice their writing daily. I have enough pages for the students to complete one everyday for the entire school year. Including all of the pages in the binder made it bulky so I included enough for the first trimester.

This is the section that is the most individualized. Due to the nature of my classroom my students math skills vary greatly. The math section contains their math papers for 1-2 units at a time. I make all of the copies at the beginning of the year and add a new unit once we completed another. I am going to LOVE having all of their math worksheets in 1 spot. Last year I was constantly running the copier and let's just say.....I felt like we didn't get much math done :(.

Everyday I work with the students on their specific IEP goals. Let's face it, not all goals can be covered during curricular content time. I load each students binder with activities that match their goals and objectives. We work on these 1:1 everyday. I also keep their data sheets in this section.

This is probably what I am most excited about. Before I clean out the other sections to put in a new monthly theme or unit I plan to go through each section and pull out 1 sheet. Then I will store them in this "Filed Work" section. This will be PERFECT to showcase work the students have done all year. I don't have a picture of this yet as we haven't started school....therefore there is no work to be filed :). Here is a glimpse of what the binders look like when the students first open them.

Do you want to know the best part about putting EVERYTHING in 1 binder? I don't have to go all over the place collecting work samples. I plan to simply grab student binders when I go into IEP meetings. No more lugging baskets of papers home to grade and file. No more "where is this and where is that". Everything is in 1 spot!!!!

I am very excited about these!!! How do you keep your students work organized?

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