Jen, a former autism teacher, shares three color-coding systems for K-2 classrooms. Assign each student a color, then use zippered envelopes, labeled bins, and colored stickers to help kids find their own materials and know where to sit and stand. It costs almost nothing and cuts down on daily chaos.
Let's talk color coding and classroom organization. I am Jen and I am a former K-12 self-contained autism teacher, and as you can see, I still love to prep resources and my resources are all over the place if I am not intentional about what I am doing. The same was true in the classroom. I loved to organize my classroom and make it functional, and one of the ways that I did that is that I color coded literally everything. From the minute my students walked in the door, they were assigned a color, and everything that was that color was individualized for them. Now, this sounds like a massive undertaking, but it really isn't, and there's a lot of really cost-effective ways to be able to do this. Let me share 3 of my favorites. The first way are these envelopes. These are so cheap. We get these on Amazon. These are reinforced. They zip closed. These are perfect for things like file folders. Lucy file folder activities can go right inside, or task cards. Anything that's loose that's specific to a student or a task that you want them to do, it's great to be able to zip that up, put that in their bag. All students have to do is look for their color. Another great tool are bins. I got these in the dollar spot at Target. I think these were $3 a piece. And they are not pricey and they are sturdy. They come with lids that go on the top, but I also had matching book bins. This is probably from Dollar Tree and those are about $1.25. I love these pieces because they show students exactly where to go all around the classroom. So if it's red, it belongs to the student who is red. The last one is so simple. Stickers. You can put stickers on almost anything, and you can get colored stickers. These are vinyl stickers that I'm cut with my Cricut, but you could go get garage sale stickers for 99 cents at Walmart or Target and put these here. Mailing labels come in colors. You could print on mailing labels and have them be specific colors, so you could have as many colors as you wanted, and you just put that on the materials you are using in your classroom. Kids will find them. These are so versatile. In fact, these vinyl stickers I often put on the floor so students know where to stand. I put them on tables so students know where to sit. They're amazing. When I was in the classroom, my students were kindergarten, first grade, and second graders. Not every student knew how to identify their name, so it was important that students had a way to be able to identify what was theirs. One of the first skills that were taught was identifying colors. Oftentimes we would have students match colors and I would give them a little card with their name on it that was that color. And then they'd be able to match their color around the room and find the things that they were looking for. That's just a way that I taught beginning matching, but additionally it made organization in my classroom seamless. Plus every para in my classroom knew whose was what. That alone is worth the effort. So many times when we have a million students and we have so many different levels, we've got all these materials at our fingertips. It's important to keep them organized so our paraprofessionals know what they're doing with each student. This saved me a lot of headache. When you color code in your classroom, you will find that your students will become more and more independent, which is what we want. We want our students to be confident in the classroom and know exactly where their materials are. Additionally, it really helps if our paraprofessionals know where things are too, not to mention the teacher. I always had to look and be like, "All right, who's read? All right, here we go." Those simple little things that you can implement in your classroom really do make a big difference in day-to-day functionality. I'm excited to hear what things you do in your classroom to organize.
