Design Your Space

U s e N e w s Y o u C a n Design Your Space

Not sure how to stay organized this school year? Don’t know how you will make space for everything? Fear not. We’ve collected some of the best design tips for your workspace and tricks to help make your job a little easier. So whether you’re a maintenance worker looking for a place to put your hammer and nails or high school teacher trying to fi gure out how to best store your students’ iPads, we have the answers for you. We even threw in a few other creative ideas!

Classroom Tricks

Keep Hands Clean - Use a rubberband or hair tie to control the amount of hand sanitizer that comes out of the bottle. Connect the band to the neck of the pump—the pump will only go down as far as the band will allow. iPad Storage Station - Use a dish drying rack to individually hold your class iPads. Plug each iPad in and use wire ties to keep control of the cords or run them along the side in between the spaces of the rack. Connect each plug to a power strip which is zip tied to the drying rack. This keeps iPads in order and charges them at the same time.

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Revive Dried Out Markers - When markers have dried out, pour 1/2 inch of nail polish remover into a paper cup and let the marker tips soak in the solution for 30 seconds. Let them dry for fi ve minutes before using. The acetone in the remover restores moisture without diluting the color and draws ink down to the tip of the markers.

Electrical Tape - Use it to section off space on your white board. You can create spaces for things like homework, agenda, the date, SAT word of the day. The possibilities are endless.

Be Clutter Free—On the Cheap

Don’t say you’re cheap—say you upcycle. What’s upcycle? It’s when you take something you might normally recycle and transform it into something new. One of the best things about upcycling—it doesn’t cost much to create what you need out of things you already have. Here are a couple of great items to upcycle:

Member Design Tip

I am a travelling teacher with a cart. I went to a discount store and bought a car console organizer—the thing you would put in between your seats. I use it on top of my cart to hold pens, pencils and other supplies. It even holds my coffee—that’s important!

- Sammie Garnett, Lewiston EA

Desk Fabric - Don’t want a black metal desk? Stretch fabric over the front to give it a fresh look.

Tin cans - clean them out, spray paint them, hot glue together, wrap with a ribbon, and add a rope handle for an organizer. Use tuna cans and place them in your desk drawer to organize small items like paper clips and push pins.

Baby wipe containers - you can easily turn these containers into storage for crayons, markers, paint etc. Use smaller wipe containers (the travel size ones) for things like pens and pencils.

Create Additional Storage Space

Take advantage of vertical space - Repurpose a closet shoe rack. Hang the shoe rack on the wall or from your blinds and use the space you would place your shoes to store different items that don’t already have a home. Use the top of a table - Use a shoe rack here as well…but this time the kind that is meant for the fl oor of your closet and is made of inexpensive wooden shelves. Place the shoe rack, available in usually white or black, and place it on top of a table to create instant storage.

Find out more at: http://tinyurl.com/ClassStorage

Use the space underneath a table - Attach a tablecloth or sheet to the edges of a table students don’t sit at and use the space underneath to store extra bins and boxes. The cloth will cover the boxes and give you extra space at the same time.

Member Design Tip

I use bins on wheels that are stackable to organize work. I have a bin for things like corrected work and a bin for work missed while students were absent. When they're absent, anything I hand out I write their name and period number on it and it goes in the absent bin. Kids will say to me, ‘you never gave that to me.’ I say ‘go to the bin.’ It's a paper management tool that helps me stay organized.

- Amanda Cooper Gorham TA

Create a Must See Bulletin Board

Scrap the Paper

Use fl at sheets from a discount store to cover your bulletin board. Sheets can be cheaper than designed fabric from a craft store and come in endless colors and patterns. Want to change the board more often? Use plastic tablecloths instead.

Member Design Tip

I have a regular folder with a pocket on each side for each class. One side is for incoming work that I need to score and look at. The other side is used for work that needs to be passed back.

- Jesse Hargrove, Hermon TA

Tweet Tweet Take a step into Twitter with this bulletin board that has no technology elements whatsoever. Create a board that allows students to “tweet” what they learned that day. To allow for the “lessons learned” to change each day, laminate white strips of paper and hang a dry erase marker by the board. This gives students the chance to absorb your lessons through the eyes of other students.

Getting back in the swing of school is an exciting time. There are new students and new ideas, and there may also be new rules and procedures to follow. You may not feel the stress now and experts say you don’t have to, if you learn how to handle what lies ahead. “You’ve got to keep your eye on the ball and maintain perspective. Start the Year Right Don’t get lost in the ancillary administrative demands outside the classroom. Because at the end of the day your relationship with your students and turning on that light…the enhancement of their knowledge…that’s what’s most important. See the forest through the Introduce yourself. Post your bio outside of your classroom and ask others to do the same. You never know what you may have in common with your coworkers and students. trees. You don’t want to get too bogged down. When you go into the classroom you are present. That’s an important skill for any instructor to develop,” says Dr. Liz Vella (AFUM) who teaches Health Psychology Be positive. Find something positive about each student and share it in a special note you send home at least once a year. at the University of Southern Maine. The million dollar question though—is how to keep your eye on the prize. Dr. Vella offers these three suggestions: 3 ExpErt tips to ManagE strEss Check school policy. If you plan to teach something that could be considered controversial make sure you are following your district policy. It’s not a bad idea to check with your principal too. Learn to say no — Be wary of spreading yourself too thin. You can’t be expected to do everything everyone asks you to do. Be aware of what is a requirement of your position and what tasks do you have the discretion to yield Support your association. Join or become more involved in your local education association for professional development and for the moral support of people who understand what your day is really like. to others or simply not participate in. That is the road to burnout—the demand control relationship—when you have high demand Remember three qualities of being a good educator; be flexible, be patient, and keep your sense of humor. and low control. Those circumstances are Dr. Liz Vella toxic in the workplace. This can tend to develop workload strain stress. The next time you get an e-mail from a superior asking to participate on a committee ask yourself, “is this a volunteer position?” If the answer is yes, then feel free to say no. Get a peer mentor — Meet on occasion to chat about your experiences and talk about issues confidentially for tips and advice to improve the situation. Make use of a mentor. The next time you find yourself saying ‘My life is so difficult and I’ll never make it through this,’ reach out to your mentor. The negative thought tends to exacerbate the issue and the stressor. So when we talk to others, particularly those who have been through our life experience, this will minimize our stress and we can then draw on our connections with others because this other person was able to get through the experience and survived it. Organization and time management are your friend — Look at what you have to do when and plan accordingly…be strategic. The ones who say, ‘I’ll figure it out as I go’ will be more vulnerable to stress. Being strategic in terms of time management is really important in terms of burden. You need to be clear on how you’re going to satisfy your requirements under a time frame.

How do you stay stress free?

“I have a very organized space. There is a place for everything. We spend a lot of time going over the procedure, safety, assignments and homework.” - Carol Pelletier, Region 8 EA “From a special education perspective I make sure I know when I am going to have all of my IEP meetings and get that all lined up. If I am less stressed my students are less stressed.” - Jill Watson, Maranacook Area Schools Association “I schedule something fun to do the day before school starts so I am not allowed to be in school that day. I give myself a vacation day before the first day.” - Holly Trottier, KennebunkArundel-Kennebunkport EA