Last Updated on August 8, 2021 by Laura
Picture this: You teach different grade level library classes back to back without a break in between. Although you are working on the same topic with each grade level (maybe library catalog practice), the lesson materials and practice pages are slightly different. After a couple of classes, your teaching area is a mass of white worksheets and you can’t find the materials your need for the class at hand. How can you organize all of this to avoid stress and frustration? Color code your teaching materials!
Color Code Your Teaching Materials
Choose a color for each grade level and stick with it. It doesn’t have to be beautiful astro bright colors (although that is fun sometimes!). Use what is available to you at your school. Most years I used yellow for 2nd grade, green for 3rd grade, blue for 4th grade, and purple (or goldenrod) for 5th grade. Since I often taught 3rd, 4th, and 5th back to back, the colored worksheets really helped me recognize quickly which sets of papers belonged to which class.
Get Organized with Color Coding
Here’s another way you can color code your teaching materials. Each year I purchase colored folders – one for each class. I follow the colors of the rainbow to make it easy to remember. Kindergarten is red, 1st grade is orange, 2nd is yellow, 3rd is green, 4th is blue, and 5th is purple. I label the folders on the front and keep them in the order in which I teach the classes each week. This makes it easy to grab the folders I need for a certain block of time. Inside each colored folder I keep a class list, seating chart, list of lessons we’ve completed with notes on where we left off last, and activity pages needed for the next lesson.
Color Coding Saved My Sanity!
With 21 classes on a fixed schedule, and close to 500 students, color coding my teaching materials has saved my sanity! As busy school librarians, we need all the tricks we can find for staying organized and efficient! So, if you have any organization tips to share, please do!
More Library Organization Ideas
I’ve got more school library organization help for you in this Library Organization Kit. Click here to take a look at the preview now!
Be the light!
Hi Laura! Would you mind sending a picture of the items you have in your colored folders? For example your list of lessons and notes. Thanks!
Hi Dianna – I will try to do that when I get my folders together for this year. The items I have in each folder are a class list, a seating chart, and a page to note (briefly) what we covered each week in class. I also include any activity pages we are working on.
Thank you for all your tips on how to keep yourself organized when you are working with so many different groups of students. Beyond myself staying organized I try to model and teach my students how to become more organized. At the end of a school day my students and I look forward to the next day and we pull out our needed books and place them in our ‘current’ day bins. I have found that this has cut down on a lot of our transition times when many students can be found wandering aimlessly looking for their notebooks or supplies. I look forward to checking back to see what new and interesting ideas you continue to share!
Hi Kristi – I like your idea of having your students get organized for success for the next day. That is a great skill that will help them throughout their lives!
Hello Laura,
Thank you for sharing this wonderful organizational idea. I am somewhat a new teacher, and I find that my organizational skills are lacking a bit. I do have inspirations of becoming a teacher librarian, I thought I might start seeking out ideas on better organizing my materials, lessons, etc. especially if I were to teach numerous classes and receive students weekly at the library. I found the colour coding with folders a great idea to help organize the different classes one might see. Instead of constantly looking for the title of the folder, I would only have to see the colour to know which class it was associated with.
Hi Julie! I really needed tricks like color coding to keep my sanity, with 21 classes coming in twice a week. I think you would like the library – it’s so wonderful to be connected with everyone in the school! Best wishes to you!