desk disasters

[FourSquare]

My kids are annoying me with their terrible organization habits. Any tips on getting 6th graders to get their lives together? I have modeled 3,593,219 times how to organize one's desk. I have required binders with color coded folders for each subject, and bought them myself for kids who didn't bring one. We take 5 minutes every day to write homework in our agendas and organize our folders.

Somehow, I still see loose papers in desks DAILY. I used to give PBIS rewards for clean desks. Maybe I need to start that again. What else can I do?

They're so bad. I'm tempted to post pictures here.

[giraffe326]

This?

[mopar]

I would start by posting a picture of what their desk should look like. Maybe even label their desk where you want things to go.

I have given some of my more disorganized students a crate (or box) by their desk. This is where they can put any extra papers that they want to take home or keep. At the end of the day, all the things in their crate go home in their backpacks.

After you complete something that needs to go into their folders, take 1 minute to have the students put the paper into their folder and put their binder in their desk. After they use a book, take the minute to have them put it away neatly.

[OneBerry]

When I taught sixth grade I found that even students with the messiest of binders and lockers would clean them out with a pleasant attitude when we did "housekeeping" every few weeks for a longer chunk of time. They were not into keeping things neat daily, but it was kept at least manageable through our clean out sessions.