Organizing - Best Day of My Life!

After being a Melisa Bauer's workshop yesterday that was organized by OKE, I'm completely inspired. I took some serious notes and felt like I still could've listened to more ideas! Like her, I'm absolutely obsessed with notebooks. (It's a bit scary... Color-coordinated and everything.)

Here's what I'm thinking for my notebooks:

1. Index Binder - This one was started last summer after Phyllis King brought her "List of Lists" to OU, and I need to update it. Since I changed schools, I customized a gift for myself - my own personalized notebook from zazzle.com. :) In case of fire, this is the binder I grab!

I have tabs for my schedule (weekly, monthly, and yearly), a tab for each grade level (that has my monthly/yearly goals that I set to teach and any other important work divided up by grade), and then also tabs for certain subjects. These last ones are what needs updated. Under my "Melody" tab, I have list the solfege in order of teaching (color-coded, of course) and after that I list the songs I know that practice them. I have the same thing for my other tabs, Rhythm, Listening, Music Elements, Games, Holidays, and then finally the National Standards for music and our state's PASS Skills.

2. Notebook #2 is up next. I liked her idea of having Monthly Classroom Zones. (I'm thinking each "zone" represented one week in the month, if I remember correctly.) But Zone 1 is for her to get bulletin boards changed and other decorations put out/away. Zone 2 is more for cleaning. Zone 3 is a more of a monthly sort. Papers that need to be filed or others that need to be thrown away get done this week. Zone 4 is Planning Power! I have an idea of where I want to be at the end of each month, but it would be nice if I wrote it out and made it more concrete... To Do List! :)

3. Song Anthology. Enough said.

Another thing that I hope to get started over my summer (or possibly Spring Break... I may not be able to wait) is sorting through my things and organizing some by tubs and/or units. Each tub would contain materials for a specific unit or month. Melisa brought a couple of hers to our workshop that we could glance through, and I think it would be completely relevant to my classroom. She has a tub labeled for each month that has more of her decorations or "Frills & Flapadoodles" and other tubs for her units. (LOVED her!!) Each thing would have its own spot and I'd know exactly where to look for it. (Instrument sorting may be the first place I start... I inherited a closet full of small percussion instruments that are all over 4 different shelves. I'm getting overwhelmed just thinking about it!) Spring Break!

Final thing on my list is to incorporate Whole Brain Teaching. Done and done. I'm sold! Have to present a break-out session tomorrow on Class Dojo - wish me luck! I may or may not be back until after my program Thursday... Hope everyone has a great week!