Teacher Tuesday: on my desk

For today's Teacher Tuesday I'm linking up with Rachel Tanenblatt at Music With Mrs. Tanenblatt to show you what's on my teacher desk right now. What a great idea for a linky party! It's easy to look at people's blog posts and think, "I'm not like that at all- I could never be that organized, or trendy, or _________". But most blog posts are just snippets of life as a whole, and the whole point of writing a blog post is generally to share something that is successful for you and you think might be useful for readers. 

With that being said, I should make it very clear that I did not adjust anything on my desk when I took this photo. I took it at the end of the day yesterday before I packed up to go home. This is what my desk currently looks like most of the time (you remember my blog is called, "Organized CHAOS", right?!?):

I have my desk facing a wall with cork board, where I hang pictures that students give me, concert programs, and documents I need to reference often (like school schedules). Right in front of the wall, I have (from left to right) a stack of catalogs that I have been collecting as they come in the mail so I have them for orders later, sanitizing wipes, my teacher supply organizer, my recorder, stapler, and hole punch, and my stacking paper sorters (which currently has papers that need to be graded from several classes, forms to pass out to my choir students, forms I need to send in my verify the professional development conference I recently attended, and my 2 iPads, which I have been charging on the paper sorter.

For everything in front of that, I should add the disclaimer that my concert is today. There are a lot of things on my desk right now that aren't normally there! OK so anyway...
I have my coffee and water, my planner (which is currently sitting on top of a stack of things I need to file), index cards with to-do lists (mostly for the concert), and several random things that students have given me (like the rainbow-colored popsicle stick craft- so cute!). Oh, and my lanyard. Because I cannot stand walking around with that thing banging on my chest and jingling all the way.

In the very front I have my clipboard with my seating charts (which is normally on my music stand where I teach but it was there because I was looking at the seating charts for my choir groups that are performing today), my choir folder (with sticky notes with more to-do lists and things to remember for the concert), and my color-group folders. 

Now, if you were looking for my usual genius teacher tips and have been disappointed, never fear: HERE'S MY TIP! ;) I use those folders to have students hand in papers when they are in the middle of working on something and I need to be able to pass them out again quickly. They are color-coded to match my grouping system in my room and I keep them in magazine holders so they can quickly find the folder for their class and find their papers. More on this system another day, but there you go, I have now bestowed some wisdom and you can go back to your lives feeling enriched. :D

And that just about covers my desk! Thank you to Rachel for hosting this linky party- I had a lot of fun! Don't forget to head over to the party to check out everyone else's posts!