Easy Ways to Manage Classroom Papers and Student Work

Keeping track of classroom papers and sending student work home used to be a real pain. Sorting papers into student mailboxes every day, getting them from the mailboxes into the students’ folders on Friday afternoon, and then into backpacks seemed like a monumental task.

But I’ve come up with a system to manage classroom papers that really works and is absolutely ZERO effort for me. My students do it all. What was that? No work, students do it all? Tell me more!

How I Manage Classroom Papers Effortlessly

Here’s how this simple system works. First, I got some plastic envelopes like these…

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These particular envelopes from Amazon lasted all year and never fell apart. Even the little snaps kept working. In fact, they held up so well, I was able to save about half of them to reuse this year (unheard of!).

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Next, I got hanging files and put them in plastic crate. I have one file for each student. These don’t have names on them yet because I don’t have my final class list. But I will add a tab to each one to make it easy to find each child’s folder.

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Now, here’s where the zero work for teacher comes in. I keep a paper tray next to my Friday folders where I toss all of my graded papers and things to send home. The stack just keeps growing, but I don’t care because students will take care of it.

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From there, the Paper Filer and Friday Folder Manager take over. These are the two most important jobs in my classroom.

⏬ Download a set of these job cards from the Free Resource Library.

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The paper filer checks the paper tray every day and files all of the papers into the hanging files. This happens whenever there’s some free time, when their work is finished, or during our morning work time.

On Friday, my Friday Folders Manager takes the papers out of each student’s file, puts them into their envelope, and passes them out to go home. Totally painless!

I don’t just send these folders home and hope the parents look in them. Inside each one is a parent log sheet. Parents sign off that they looked at their child’s papers and then send the folder back in on Monday.

​​The log sheet looks like this…

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At the beginning of the year, I fill in all the Friday dates for the entire year so I never have to think about it again.

The log just stays in each student’s Friday folder. And since the folders are transparent, I don’t even have to open them to see if it was signed.

This paper management system has saved me so much time and headache and I hope it helps you too!