Administration organization

The best thing I ever bought for my center was a large dry erase board. It is magnets and has a wipe off surface. Similar to the one you see here. It also has small, very light, gray dots to help you write on a straight line. I bought it at Costco for about $25 and it is the best thing I ever did. I use this board to write daily notes to teachers (who is absent today), keep track of days off requests, and general notes for the center that everyone needs to be aware of (meetings, fire drills, schedule changes, etc...). What's great about the magnetic part is that when I have papers to give to them, I can just put them on the board. I have split my board into 6 sections: 1 for each of the four classrooms, 1 for this month's notes, and 1 for future notes. I also have it color coded so that the teacher's know what color to look for. Each classroom has it's own color (red, orange, blue, green) and then Purple are notes for everyone and Yellow is for changes that everyone needs to be aware of. This has really helped me become more organized and the teachers from having to ask me who's called in, what's going on, etc... These are all things that need to be communicated, but can really break my rhythm when I'm in the middle of a report and have to stop to answer mundane questions.

This way, I also know that if a teacher is interrupting me, it must be important. I keep this board up across from my desk so I can see it at all times. It used to be just to the right of my desk, which also worked because it was within easy sight of everything; but office arrangement caused me to move it. Either way, the most important thing I have found in using this system is to have it easily visible to the teachers when they walk by the door and myself from my desk.