How to Organize 2nd Grade Guided Math Units

If you’ve been following me for some time you know that I have created a 2nd grade guided math year long curriculum. Each unit comes with lesson plans and activities for whole group and small group instruction, as well as, assessments, games, and interactive notebook activities! Because there are so many 2nd grade math lessons in each, I often get asked how I organize all the pieces of my Guided Math units.

I’m going to break down each step of how I organize them, but if you would rather watch the video tutorial scroll down to the bottom of this post as I show you how I organize my Understanding Numbers unit.

To start off with, I always keep my master copies in plastic sheet protectors in a 1 inch binder. As far as, prepped station activity materials go I like to keep all of them inside scrapbook containers that I get from Michael’s. They usually aren’t too expensive and I always wait until they are on sale! Plus, I like all the pretty colors.

Here is a breakdown of my Binders:

1. All of my master lesson plans in one sleeve together so that I can easily slide them out when needed.

2. Contains all of my vocabulary anchor charts that go with this lesson.

3. Holds all of my assessments in a single page protector including pre-tests and data checklists

4. After that I separate the daily overview pages into each of their own sleeves. Each day comes with a title page of what activities are to be done so I include the master copies of each of those. (Day 1, Day 2, etc.)

• You can also tuck activities that you make and put it inside the page protectors with the master copies.

5. Higher Order Thinking (H.O.T.) questions

6. Extra copies of anything in the back in a page protector

What’s inside the Scrapbook Containers?

Inside each scrapbook container, I keep all of my prepped math stations for that unit, along with any other materials that can be used year after year that go along with that unit. Here are just a few examples of what you’ll find inside:

• Large set of number cards that are binder clipped
• Pocket chart sort activities for whole group lessons
• Poly-zip folders – I’ve recently started using these rather than gallon ziploc bags because you can close these with an 8×11 piece of paper inside without bending it! You can also store items needed for that activity including manipulatives inside of it without them falling out.
• Large craft examples
• Books

As I said, I’m a huge fan of the scrapbook containers from Michael’s to use for the hands-on materials that you don’t want to re-make every single year. They are very durable and long-lasting in my opinion.

Watch the video below for a sneak peek at how to keep everything together for your 2nd grade math lessons so that you have it in one place from year to year!

If you already own any of my guided math units, you can download the binder covers pictured above in my TPT store.

Feel free to save the pin below to come back to this organizational post for later when you need it!