Clutter Free Classroom Challenge and Giveaways

Whoa baby.  The last week and a half has flown by.  It's hard to believe that not only is Christmas break over, but it is now 2013 and my New Year's Resolutions should be in full force.  Should be.

One of my New Year's Resolutions for this year is to clean up and organize my classroom.  This has been my goal each and every year and every year I make small (and sometimes huge) steps to obtaining this goal.  But truth of the matter is, when your a classroom teacher, organization is a never ending challenge.

 
Take my desk for example.  Over the summer I created an awesome toolbox and labels for my plastic drawers to help me stay organized.  Every afternoon, before I go home, I clean off my desk so that it can look neat and tidy when I return the next day.  However, something strange happens from the minute I step in my classroom to the minute I clean up at the end of the day.  It's like a tornado whirls though throwing miscellaneous objects and papers about.  My desk starts off like on the left and then ends up like on the right hand side.  (Now granted my before picture was taken back in August - notice the green wall.  The after picture was taken this week.  But, you get the idea.)

I think I'm good at organizing....but I want to be great!  I can organize and clean when I allot myself a planned time.  But, I can't seem to keep things clean.  In the heat of the moment, when I'm in the mist of teaching, I throw things anywhere and everywhere!

Now, on to my second problem. I keep things neat and tidy on the outside....but behind closed doors....you don't even want to know.

Take my cupboards for instance.  When the doors are closed they don't look great...but they don't look horrible either.  Open them up and shazam....your in for a whirlwind of hurt.  Don't even try to find anything in them.  If you pull something out everything else will come toppling out and crush you.  Over the summer I actually cleaned these out and organized them.  Apparently my system sucked because here I am, half way through the school year, and it looks like an explosion occurred behind each and every door.

Sadly, it's not just behind the doors that I need to worry about.  It's also inside each and every drawer.  I go with the mind set of out of sight out of mind.  The issue is, I have a wealth of great resources that I completely forget about until I reorganize again over the summer.

Lets face it, organizing a classroom, and keeping that said classroom organized, could be a full time job in and of itself.  So, I've enlisted some help to push my classroom organization to the next level.  I'm joining up with the Clutter-Free Classroom's challenge to clean and organize my classroom so that it looks and runs smoother throughout the rest of the year.

And now for a few giveaway announcements. 

Check out the Fourth Grade Flipper for her amazing 300 Follower Giveaway!

And...the winner of my 300 Follower Giveaway is ....

Lori R

Congrats Lori!  Check your email!