By Katie | Leave A Comment
by Brea
People, I need some advice. I come to you this evening, not giving a hack, but asking for a hack.
How in the hack do you stay organized???
(Get it? How the hack? Like ‘how the heck’ … Nevermind. It was funny in my head. Sorry about that.)
Seriously! I’m not exactly Little Mrs Type A over here, as anyone who has ever visited my site can very quickly see. So how do you keep track of who is doing what in school, and what year they did it in, and if you’ll use it again, and all that fun stuff.
And where do you put everything? Do you have one school area? Do you store your currently-unused curriculum in the attic? The basement? The closet under the stairs? The dog house? Your husband’s closet? (That’s where mine is, and I don’t think he’s even noticed yet!)
Do you use tracking software, or are you an old school super mom who puts things in a notebook … and doesn’t lose the notebook?!?! (Of you are that mom, I am in awe of you. So far, this summer, I’ve only lost about 5 notebooks. I’m really improving over here!)
So what do you do? How do you keep your life from descending into complete and utter chaos every day of the week? Please help me, all you moms who know what you’re doing!! Help this messy, crazy, willing to try just about anything once homeschoolin’ mama!
ABOUT Katie
Katie is the former Editor-in-Chief of Blissfully Domestic and currently serves as Managing Editor o{read more}
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I’m working on this, too. Dawn @ By Sun and Candlelight has a great file crate plan that has really helped me. I can’t do her description justice, but it’s basicly a file crate with hanging files (6 for the year) and file folders (1 per week). Everything for the week is dropped in the file! I KNOW how to drop things:)
As far as book/binder storage, I use bookshelves obviously, but for the books & binders we use every day I keep them in a 3 drawer unit on wheels. When I look over what we’re going to do for the week I add any extra books we might use. Each kid has their own drawer and we can wheel it out of the way when we get done. Very handy.
Getting organized is one of those ongoing things…I’m always checking out a new idea or looking for a way to meet that next challenge, you know? Mostly my problem is doing the work!
Scrapbooking is fun way to keep track of what you do homeschooling. You can involve the kids with it too. We live in a state where we are not required to maintain a portfolio, but I found it helpful for myself, especially in our first year. Make a calendar page and then specific pages related to it can go behind each month. Certainly blogging is also an interesting and fun way to keep track too.
Hey Brea (by the way, cool name–it was one of our favorites a few babies ago…baby #2 I think). Anyway, I hear ya about all the paraphernalia (holy paper Batman!). I tried a few different systems. As for keeping each kid’s stuff together, the backpack system has worked pretty well for us. Each has his/her own backpack with all their current school stuff in there (along with appropriate supplies like pencils, etc.). Each day they bring it to the place where we do school and then after school is done, they put all their stuff back in their backpack and they can hang it up in its designated spot. Just because it’s IN their backpack doesn’t mean it’s ORGANIZED though. But you can’t have everything.
The backpack system has an added bonus which is that it’s easily toted along if we need to run an errand, go to the library or whatever. As for storing school books, notebooks, etc. (both new and already completed), I like everything in one place. If I’ve got stuff stored here and there (in the attic, basement, etc.), I generally forget I have it. So, we have one set of bookshelves on which I keep everything–notebooks, checked-out library books, workbooks, etc. After we’ve filled up a notebook or completed a workbook or have a stack of loose papers, I throw them in one of those magazine storage boxes (like these from Ikea) which are quite reasonably priced. I like these because they are cheap, you can slap a label on them easily, they hold all manner of normal-sized notebooks, they eliminate the messy stacks of loose papers and once on the shelf, they make everything look neat and tidy. What could be better!
Oops, I tried to post a link to the magazine boxes at ikea.com but apparently my html didn’t take. Anyway, here’s the link in full form: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50022354
Well, I am reading with you. Our house is a puzzle of heaps….heaps of books, heaps of papers, heaps of ????. I have 3 calendars running, and a school notebook. I heard of someone taking one of those accordion file folders for each child, and just putting things in there during the month. Later, she took it all out and bound it
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