How To Control Those Copies

Do you........
Have *stacks* of papers?

Have file cabinets full of copies?

KNOW you made copies of today's math test even though you can't find them?

Run copies and can't remember if it was for practice or an assessment?

I am pretty sure I just heard:

YES!  

AMEN sister!

You are preaching to the choir, girl! 

How did you know? 

My OCDness can't handle stacks, messy filing cabinets, or losing things. I am not a paper pencil teacher but still seem to need and use lots of copies.

We have a Copy Center in our district. We "send off" for copies we need. This can be done electronically or as a hard copy. There is about a two week turn around. But......you can change the default date in an emergency. They have not clarified what an emergency is. *wink wink*

The last few years my team my team has worked hard to streamline the process. We do most of our planning and copy ordering as a team. Since we TRY to adhere to the default date we order as many things as we can in advance.

Planning ahead is good, right???

YES!

Until the copies arrive...

It is SO difficult to remember what you had planned or when you planned to use it when you ordered it WEEKS ago!

These two simple ideas have been a life saver the last few years!

1. Color Code

We order all of our Diagnostics on PINK, our Formative Assessments on YELLOW and our Summative Assessments on GREEN. Everything else is on white.

Not only does this keep us crazy overwhelmed exhausted perfect teachers organized the colors are a little trigger for our kiddos! They know that yellow is important and green is VERY important!

2. Add Details

We write the standard number, standard description, week number and total points at the top of each page before we send it to Copy Center! This makes it easy to know what week it is planned for. It is also a timesaver when inputting grades into our grade books. The standard is RIGHT THERE! When we do not make your own assessments or activities we still try to do this. I will often take a screen shot of the page, slide it into a PowerPoint and add a text box.

*Funny little story... Last week I did not have time to send off for a formative I HAD TO GIVE before the end of the grading period so I ran it at school on white paper. I told the kiddos and they said, "It's okay, add it to your 'Miss Take' poster. We will just pretend it is yellow!"

{In my defense it was the week before Spring Break. My brain needed a rest!}

Even if you make your own copies at your school you can still do this!

Do you have any copy tips, tricks or hints to share?