File Cabinets
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As our teaching has evolved over the years, so has the purpose of our filing cabinets. We used to have two cabinets filled to the brim with our worksheets, centers, thematic units, and assessment materials. After Daily 5 and CAFE revolutionized the way we work with children, most of those materials became obsolete. The file cabinets have been repurposed for three main uses:
- To store our assessments and curriculum resources
- To file many of the books we use for strategy instruction
- To form a barrier which hides the least tidy areas of our rooms. For both of us, this happens to be the coat and backpack area. You'll see by the picture that you'd never know about the unsightly mess lurking beyond the file cabinet barrier.
Offsetting the file cabinets will extend the barrier and create a pleasing angled look.
Here is the backside of the two cabinets (This photo was taken after school, so the mess is gone). The two white stacking containers contain math manipulatives. The purple tub houses student lunches. 
If you have an area that is a visual mess, you may want to try using your file cabinets as a barrier. It is one of our favorite strategies when doing a room makeover.