Organizing Lessons and Handouts with CCSS

I'll tell you what I tell my students: organization is not my forte!  Which means I have to put in a little extra effort to stay organized!  Last year I taught at a school with almost NO curriculum.  Talk about late nights scouring TpT, Pinterest, and creating materials. This led to ever-accumulating piles of paper! Over Spring Break I finally decided to tackle the papers strewn in every corner of my classroom...my car...and my home! And this is what I came up with:

I tried to be cute at first with nice, pretty binders.  However, my 2nd grade math exploded into a bigger 3" binder and all I could come up with was black.  To be honest, I might have to split that up into two before the year is out!

The key to this system is that everything is filed by standard!  I will walk you through my math binder to get an idea.  I started by typing up all the standards for quick referencing.  I can't help it, I wanted it to be a little cute :) 

Then I tabbed every individual standard.

After that I invested in plenty of sheet protectors and started filing!

Now this year I had everything I needed for teaching right at my fingertips!  Every time I use something in class...or can't resist downloading the TpT freebie...I throw it in my "To File" pile.

I have it on my weekly to-do list to file every Friday after school. However, it might only happen once every couple of weeks.  Don't judge...I teach two grade levels which means twice the lessons and twice the handouts!  But I know I'll be set for years in the future.  Hopefully you find a filing method that works for you because teaching is hard enough without recreating the wheel every year!  

Happy filing and happy teaching!