Wordless Wednesday (OK...not so wordless)

Tonight I am linking up with Sugar and Spice for her weekly Wordless Wednesday post!  But hey, let's be real...wordless is not really my thing!

Here are some quick snapshots I took today in my room.  I am known by MANY to be OCD both at home and at school.  I've always been called uber organized and the organized one.  Bottom line...I'm organized.  I can't help it.  It's in my nature.  It keeps me calm and actually helps me be a better teacher!

One of the way I stay organized is labels.  I LOVE THEM!  And not just labels for me...for my students too!  Since my students are in kindergarten and pre-readers, I use a lot of colors and pictures as well as words for my labels.  To start the school year, I always label each table with a color (and the year progresses we add letters, numbers, words, etc.)  The label for the table is on the table tub.  This year I am not using chair pockets so I purchased a black crate for each table to hold journals, handwriting books, etc.  These crates received matching labels.

I am fortunate in my room to have nice shelving and tubs provided by my district to hold center items.  The tubs on the shelves are colored blue, red, green and yellow - which perfectly match my table colors!  When a student is working in centers and pulls a blue tub off of the shelf, he or she goes to the blue table to work!   Easy peasy!

I am strategic about where I place my tables and shelves to minimize traffic during centers.

I also CLEARLY label each center.  The pictures on each shelf and tub are the exact pictures on my center rotation chart.  If a student doesn't remember exactly where a center is, they just have to find the matching picture.

My students do really well with this system!  My goal is to create independent learners at centers and this really helps!  You can grab my center labels here to help you become more organized too!  :)

XOXO,

Racheal