I have to say that I have always been thought of as an organized person. I took pride in that. But, since having two children it seems I have lost the time and effort for organization. I am sitting here right now in the middle of a wrecked playroom. I wrecked it. I get to the point where I can't stand the way things are and I'll just pull everything out. Now, I am wondering how to organize my educational things. I have ample space for all the games/manipulatives and books but I foget I have stuff. Does that sound crazy. I have so much that I really have to be creative in storing things. Then, it's so "stored' that I don't see it and therefore I forget about it. I need to see how you all are storing things. I once had a good teacher friend that I taught with that was the "Queen" of organized. She had all her books and things filed on index cards. I tried to do that last summer and gave up after a couple of days. I don't think I would actually go looking at the cards to see what I had to use, YKWM? So, for now, I have the stuff stacked on bookshelves and in storage containers. The little things get put into baskets and they get forgotten about. :cry: HELP!
I would like to know too. I am pretty much the same as you. I have a school room and tried to put everything on shelves by subject but it didn't work that well. Some things go in more than one subject.
Boy this is a good ? for Tina Tx and She they are the ones who need to do a online class to get all of organized and in shape. Them two are always put together well.
Look for a book by Emily Barnes at your library. She has many. I tried to read her once, and to be quite honest felt that she must have mental problems to be THAT organized, LOL!!! She's a big one for file cards, too. I do the majority of my teaching in the kitchen. Our "formal" dining room is off the kitchen, which isn't a dining room for us, but a "computer room". It has two computers in it, plus a desk and some other storage stuff. It's a rather unorganized room; I've been trying for about two years to do something about that! Then, in our living room right off our dining room are two bookcases. One contains all my current school books. I've try to keep them by subject to some extent, but.... The other has lots of science, nature, etc. books on it. We've one of those plastic five-drawer contraptions, and I've recently bought a new three-drawer one (because the drawer on our compture desk broke and can't be fixed, and the three-drawer one fits so nicely under there). I even began labeling what exactly went INTO the drawers!!! (Be impressed!) One is specifically for my pre-schooler's "school crayons", etc.
Hummm that is a good one. I think it is something that we all struggle with when we become *book hogs*. All books need to come home with us, right? :lol: I couldn't do the index card thing because...it just sounds like too much work for me. :wink: I would tend to lean more towards setting up a database with things you might want to be able to sort on. subject title author isbn & how much you paid for it (this would be handy for when you went to price & sale them) a brief description where you stored it if it's a book/game/color book etc... grade appropriate for Ya know stuff like that so...when you said ok...let's do a sciene experiment... which books do I have that refer to science experiments - do a key word search and vola it pops up with all the things that you put the word science into or if you narrowed it based on what you own. You know reference, story, fiction, non fiction. The sky is the limit. This is my plan, no I haven't done it yet. :lol: I do currently have my books sorted out by subject the others that fall through are the story type books that I don't realize I have because I got them when I purchased the $15 for a brown paper sack of books at the library. :lol: Science is probably the hardest one for me to track as far as school subjects because I have SOOOOO many science type books & refrence materials. What I usually do is sit down and grab all my books and start flipping to see what we will cover and which book I like the most for a particular thing - get copies made of coloring pages etc.... I'll go and get science experiments for several weeks at one sitting. So....while there are a zillion ways to organize and have your stuff *together*...you have to figure out how much time is it work to organize. A simple method or an elaborate one that took you 10 hours to complete that yielded 1 hour of *benefit*. :wink: I'm sure that wasn't what you were hoping for. I know you wanted this big miracle cure of how to quickly and effectively make it perfect. ROFL Don't we all? I DO!!!! :lol: I'd love to hear some other ideas that might help me. :wink: Here are some books that are for organizing your home. See if your library has them and flip through. I always believe you can tell if you are *suppose to* read a book by flipping through it. :wink: Hidden Art of Homeschooling by Edith Schaeffer The Messies Manual and Messies No More by Sandra Felton The Family Manager by Kathy Peel A Survivor's Guide to Homeschooling by Luanne Shackelford & Susan White Side-tracked Home Executivies by Pam Young & Peggy Jones Clutter's Last Stand and Is There Life After Housework? by Don Aslett Looking Well to the Ways of Your household (practical helpf fo rthe domestically challenged by Mary Carney 401 ways to get your kids to work at home by Bonnie Runyan McCullough Choreorganizers: The visual way to organize household chores by Jennifer Steward Emilie's Creative Home Organizer and other book by Emilie Barnes The Overload Syndrome: Learning to live within your limits by Richard A. Swenson Margin: Restoring emotional, physical, financial, and time reserves to overloaded lived by Richard A. Swenson I've also heard good things about Managers of their home www.freefromclutter.com www.flylady.com - is great but...her e-loop e-mail made me nuts -- too much clutter. :wink:
I think I've become ADD when it comes to reading self help books, lol! I try to read them and then get sidetracked. I doubt, even if I bought them, that I would do well reading any books. I am looking for a great miracle cure! I don't think I will ever find it. However, I did get my shelves reorganized. I just wished all the shelves were in ds reach. Whatever gets put up high gets ignored or I have to help get it down everytime. I decided to put all the games and educational toys and things on the bottom shelves. The kids will see these first and hopefully will play them more. I ended up putting my son's Little People stuff on the very top but I don't mind getting it down. DD is tall enough to get it down as well. I much of the math manipulatives and tools back in a container with a handle (portable). Sounds good. All the art stuff is next. I'm going to try to get it all to fit into one of my portable drawer containers. One cool thing I did was make a container just for "Spanish". I made a little assignment sheet that dd can use when using this container. DD is not all that into learning Spanish right now. But, now that she has the freedom to choose her activities then maybe she'll be a little more interested. Inside I put things like pc games, books, audio tapes, worksheets, Spanish crafts, Spanish puzzles, etc. I think I am going to do a music box as well. I have some great videos, books and cd's to put in there as well as workbooks. I did do a "pre-k" box as well with activities and games for ds. I'll try to be good about rotating the activities each week. No miracle cure yet but still looking!!! Still looking for even more good ideas. Thanks everyone for all your tips!
LOL... Missy, I'm the same way- no concentration to read!! I tried to read all these 'how to' books on h.s.ing and it was a trip. I don't remember anything I read, either.
See! You weren't suppose to read those books. :lol: Most homeschool books that I have *read*, I flipped through and read the chapters that interested me. There were several that I got from the library that...just got flipped through. We have ALL our games, educational or *junk*, along with the legos and stuff that doesn't get stored in the kids room, all in the hall closet. In our classroom is where I keep all the *text* books and crafts. I use an organizer that is 4 row, 3-4 buckets across (you can find them at Target in either the girl pastel or the primary colors - cost $35-$50 depending on if it's on sale or not) In this we have all our crafty foam pieces (which are in those cheap toss away rubbermaid type containers), our unifex cubes, flashcards, geometric shapes, hama beads, counting maniupulatives (double sided counters, dinosaurs, colored bears, etc) It really is a great way to hold a lot of things in a small space BUT still be able to find it all easily. We have a plastic 7 drawer tower that is only about 15" wide x 20" deep and maybe 4ft tall (approx. measurements - they sell these at Target, Wal-mart, Sam's etc... cost around $20-$30) in that we have our colored sand containers, more beads, paint smocks, paper remanents (sp?), stickers, stuff like that. Anyway...some other ideas for you to toss around. I always say that while you will use someone elses idea it will become *tweaked* and become your own. So...the more we share the more ideas start flowing, right? :wink:
The funny thing is that I am the queen of storage containers. I have a ton of them. I think our problem is that things start out very organized in them and then we forget they are there. My kids are also really good at "disorganizing" the baskets and drawers which makes things really confusing. I bet if I had invested in those inexpensive shoebox containers and filled them with manipulatives and such rather than these expensive, pretty baskets (that are rather small) then we might find something. I just like things to look nice on the outside, ya know. I'm very visual.
Heres what I do: find an organization system that works for you. and LABEL EVERYTHING. It doesn't have to be fancy, mine have index cards taped to the boxes with all the contents on each one, so I can tell what is where at a glance. ALSO when you are cleaning up, you can tell which box stuff came out of. My other suggestion is a file of some sort. Maybe a 3 ring binder or a word document on your computer. Use that to organize supplies that wont fit in a box: book shelf 1 should contain whatever books. Perhaps keep a list of all your science supplies. Whatever works best for you. Good luck! elissa
