These carts are my best (inanimate) friends. They're available for a reasonable price of around $34 each at Amazon, but I got mine at Sam's Club for $25 each. My desk is never buried under papers because every scrap of paper has a home in one of these carts. Below is a color-coded chart to explain how exactly how I use these bad boys.
Cart 1
8th Grade-Handouts
8th Grade-Graded Work to be Returned to Students
7th Grade-Handouts
7th Grade-Graded Work to be Returned to Students
6th Grade-Handouts
6th Grade-Graded Work to be Returned to Students
Master Notebooks (by this, I mean my copies of Interactive Notebooks)
8th Grade-Extra Work (in case I am out unexpectedly)
7th Grade-Extra Work
6th Grade-Extra Work
Cart 2
Attendance Slips
Nurse Referral Slips
Discipline Forms Detention (I have detention duty, so the clipboard students use to sign in is here) Sub (useful info for subs)
Sub (more stuff for subs)
Visual Aids (Root Word of the Week, Famous Scientist Quotes, etc. that I use for Bellwork)
Receipts (for all the various fundraisers)
Misc. (anything that doesn't already have a home)
Announcement Sheets*
You may notice a category that is missing. Where do I keep papers that haven't yet been graded? I do one of two things: A. I grade them right away and put them in the correct drawer. B. I paperclip them together, stick them inside my gradebook, grade them at my earliest opportunity, and then put then in the correct drawer. I rarely keep them more than 24 hours. I make sure to grade them promptly and return them to students the next school day. One caveat: if many students are absent on test day, I wait until every student has made up the test to avoid students who have already received their graded test passing it along to "assist" the absentees. I keep my copy basket on top. As I come across things I need to copy, I just drop them into the basket.
*What are announcements sheets, you ask? They're only the greatest idea ever. I wish every school I've ever worked at had done these. Instead of interrupting class time to rattle off announcements no one listens to over the intercom, my school prints up the announcements (along with the list of absent students, students' birthdays that day, etc.), and an office helper delivers them. They stick mine to my doorframe with a magnet, so class is never disrupted. Brilliant!
