Teacher Timesavers {Binder Clips}

If there is one thing I think I have heard almost every teacher say it is definitely that there is just not enough time in the day.  Anything that I can find to save me time is like gold in my book. I am sharing 4 of my favorite tips with you today so you can save just a little bit of your precious time.

Do you get your class list before the school year starts and label 7,257 things with each of their names? Yup me too...and I alphabetize them so that I can easily run through my list of kids in order and always know who is missing, who didn't bring back their permission slip, and who's homework is missing.  But what happens when a kid leaves? Or a new students arrives? Do I have to relabel my student cubbies to keep them in alphabetical order? NOPE! Because I use binder clips for labeling them.  I can quickly move them around as needed and students are able to see their name even when there are papers in the cubby.   

So sometimes I try to push the limits of the amount of paper I can successfully cut at the same time JUST so I don't have to cut each page separately only to totally cut through half of the writing on pages 5 through 10.  Binder clips to the rescue again! Clip each side together before cutting, and poof! Perfect cuts on each page.  This little trick even works with a paper cutter to save your hand muscles.

 Okay one more binder clip tip while I'm on a roll here.  I used to just clip stacks of papers together at the top and throw them in my bag at the end of each day. Then I'd get home, and just looking at the mess of papers in my bag would stress me out so much, most of the time I wouldn't even take them out.  Then I started using binder clips on the side of my pages so that I could label them and see right away what I needed to do. Maybe before dinner I knew I had 5 minutes so I could grab the stack to grade quick.  After dinner I maybe had a half hour before heading to the gym so I had plenty of time to cut the pages I needed to prep.  Basically it helps me divide my tasks into smaller doable chunks that don't overwhelm me. And if I decide not to open my teaching bag at home? They are all labeled for me to try to finish up at school in the morning.

Okay one last tip. One thing I never had enough space for was anchor charts in my classroom.  So I would tape them up all over the place.  Then I would have to take them down and tape up new ones constantly. Then I realized that my anchor chart paper had 2 perfect little holes at the top just the right size for command hooks.  So I started putting up command hooks anywhere I knew I'd want to hang a chart.  Then it became super easy to hang new charts over old ones or even hang a whole pad of chart paper. I never had to struggle with ripping the anchor chart when i pulled it down to move it, and I could easy flip back to older charts to reference them with the class as needed.  And guess what? If your chart paper doesn't have holes at the top do you know what you can use to hang them? That's right binder clips, haha. Just clip 2 at the top of the page and use the silver pull back parts {does that part have a name?} to hang on your hooks.

Alright time to go buy stock in binder clips, because I have a feeling there's going to be a huge surge in Amazon binder clip orders tonight ;) Seriously though, I hope you've found something that you can use to save you time in your classroom! Be sure to come back each day for the rest of the month to find more timesavers from out EE crew!