Organizing the Teachers Desk

A few years back I invested in this organizer:

The top has 6 sections where I keep:

• lesson plans
• grade book & papers to be graded
• grade level standards 
• paperwork to copy, to file, take to office, etc.
• extras – worksheets/activities used as fillers or back-up when lessons don’t go as planned
• spiral notebook & clipboard – I keep a spiral notebook every year to write down notes from staff meetings, grade level meetings, conferences, reminders, etc.  The clipboard is something I carry with me while teaching small groups so I can note behavior and not forget!

The bottom has 2 trays where I keep:

• family communication log
• sub folder

I have bookcases by my desk.  That’s where I keep my teacher’s guides, binders with supplemental materials, drawers with specials items (ie. stickers, awards, homework/behavior notes, etc.) and my weekly files.  I don’t have this organizer, but I do something similar:

Each tub holds everything needed for one day during the week.  It works for me because after I make a stack of copies, it’s easy to dump everything into the right tub.

How do you keep your teacher’s desk organized?