My Montessori Journey

Record Keeping in the Montessori classroom

Here is a long-awaited post about how I handle record-keeping in my Montessori preschool classroom.  I've had several readers ask this either in the comments section or in emails, and I've promised to write a post describing what I do to keep track of what work children have done, what lessons I've given, etc. 

My main day-to-day "tool" for record-keeping is one I learned from Mrs. Honey (yes, that is really her name) who was the Montessori teacher I did my internship under.  She just took a regular sheet of copy paper and divided it vertically in half, then into boxes horizontally so she had 20 boxes on a sheet.  She wrote a student's name in each box (20 students per class session) and xeroxed the page.  She kept one of these forms on a clipboard at all times and used it to jot down anecdotal notes about the children.  Since that school required children to attend 5 days per week she only needed one sheet to cover all her students.  I've had to adapt this for my situation since I have different children attending each day.

I have one page as described above for each session that I teach during the week. Therefore, I have 8 different sheets since I teach 5 morning and 3 afternoon sessions.  I keep the sheets on a clipboard and keep the clipboard with me or near me during most of the work period.  EAch time I give a lesson, I jot it down in that child's box.  I also jot down which children are working together and which activities they are choosing on their own.  This system is not fool-proof and doesn't not capture every single activity the children do throughout the work period each day.  However, it is the best system I've found for keeping notes and it helps me tremendously when I prepare for parent-teacher conferences.

Below you can see photos of my record sheets on the clipboard.  I keep the same sheets on the clipboard for several weeks.  I replace them with new sheets when they become too full of writing.  Then I remove them all and staple them together, noting the beginning and ending dates of the recording period.

 

 

When I get ready to prepare for parent-teacher conferences, I pull out all the sheet and use them to help me fill out a data sheet for each student.  The one I use is one I came up with myself last year.  It is basically a checklist of the main materials I present in each of the curriculum areas of the classroom.  There are many variations and even materials that are not represented on this list.  When I share the checklist at conferences I explain to parents that it isn't an all-inclusive list of what's in the classroom.  Instead, it gives an overview of the areas a child has been working in.  I color code my "checks" by semester so that over the course of a school year and between fall and spring conferences we can easily see what "new" work a child has chosen or received lessons on.  When I have students for the second year, the sheet will reflect 2 years of work in the classroom and should have a variety of activities "checked off." 

Below ou can see the form I've described above.  This particular form is an actual form for one of my second year students from this past school year.  In the second photo you can easily see how I've color-coded her work from each semester.

 

 

I know you may have MANY questions for me about all this, though I hope I've explained it clearly.  Below you will find a link to the form I use.  You are welcome to use it, adapt it, whatever you choose.

Download Curriculum sheet

I would love to hear from you about how you go about record-keeping.  If you would like to share, please do so in the comments section so we can all benefit from each other's ideas. 

Gettin' Goin'

In the Midwest, we have a quirky (and cute) little habit of dropping the "g"s at the end of our words.  Thus the title:  Gettin' Goin'.  Translation:  I'm getting going on setting up my Montessori 3-6 classroom for this fall.  It's sort of a Midwestern way of saying getting started. My first day with students is Monday, August 24th, exactly three weeks from today.  And I honestly haven't been in my classroom all summer. The carpets were professionally cleaned several weeks ago and I went up at that time to move all the furniture onto the tiled area.  Tonight my goal was to get all the furniture back in place.  This is what my classroom looked like from the main entrance when I started tonight.

 

And this is what it looked like when I left.  Now that's more like it!!  Much betta!!

 

My classroom has a foyer area where the parents and children wait before class and where parents wait to pick up their children.  Here's what it looked like when I came tonight............the bulletin board border was rainbows and shamrocks.........left over from............March!  YIKES!!

 

And here's how it looked when I left........complete with an apple border that should get me through the end of September.  This is the only bulletin board I do and it looks just like this more or less all year with the only variation being that I change the border.....or recruit nice helpful moms to change it for me. :0)

 

 

After getting everything set up I was kind of ready to do a little more.  All the items on my shelves are exactly what was there on the last day of school in May...........so I have a lot to do with the various shelves...........dusting.......putting out new work............replenishing consumables, etc.  Tonight all I did was pull out my September bin and my August/September notebook and look at some of the things I had out last fall.

 

Below you can see the contents of my September bin.  These canvas bins (from Target) hold A TON OF STUFF.  After my first year back teaching Montessori last year, each bin was filled to the brim!!  I keep all my seasonal manipulative items, games, etc., in these bins.

 

I have one of these notebooks for each month.  (August and September are shared since we only have school for about 1 week in August.)  Inside are page protectors which hold ideas for each classroom area (i.e. practical life, language, math, etc.) as well as copies of art projects and reproducibles.  I added a lot to these last year as I found new things to do.  It was great tonight to just pull out this notebook and be able to easily find all the seasonal things I'll want to use right off the bat this fall.

 

Here you can see an apple alphabet activity I stashed in the front pocket.  On the right is a page of seasonal fingerplays and songs. 

 

I felt good about what I accomlished tonight.  It was good to get back into the classroom and get into that "school" mindset again.  I am now getting motivated to keep going.........I'm sure I'll be in the classroom a little bit each day from now until day one.  So expect lots more posts on this blog soon.

As I was driving home from school, I was overcome by a strong feeling of peace and joy.  I live only a few miles from the school I teach in and when I go home the "back way" I have a beautiful view of the rolling farmland that is prevalent where I live here in the Midwest.  I have wanted many times to post some photos of the views around my school but usually forget to take the pictures.  Tonight I stopped my van several times to shoot some pictures of my view on the way home.  I'll leave you with some images that I find to be very idyllic and bucolic...........I had to put some "big-girl" words in this post to offset the title words!  ha!

 

 

 

Gluing Activity

I spent about 4 hours in the classroom today.  For all that time, I don't have a lot of photos to show however.  A large chunk of time was spent organizing all my art supplies.  My supply order was delivered recently and the art cupboard was the last one yet to organize.  It took me a little more than an hour to get that organized how I want it.  But, time well spent as the supplies are now grouped according to type and easy to find within the cabinet.  I wanted to share how I organized the construction paper.  I am sure others have thought to do it this way.  However, in past teaching situations, I've always had the different colors stacked horizontally in a big stack.  This makes it a little difficult when you are trying to pull a sheet of a certain color out of the stack.  So........I had an extra divided organizer, the larger kind that is probably made to separate folders.  And I decided to use it to organize the paper by color VERTICALLY.  This will make it really easy to pull out the color I need as well as to refile loose papers.  Here is a photo of the construction paper in the cabinet.

To the right of the construction paper is a magazine file which holds plain white drawing paper and some brown kraft drawing paper.

One of the last things I needed to prepare for my art shelf to start the year was the Gluing Activity.  The entire purpose of this work is to give the child practice in gluing small pieces to a background.  This is an excellent activity for developing and strengthening the little muscles in the fingers which will prepare the children for future work in writing and drawing.   Following are photos with descriptions.

On the bottom shelf you will see my Gluing Activity all ready for children.  From left to right are:  4 baskets for carrying supplies to a table; small basket holding 2 glue sticks and 2 Tap 'n Glue bottles from Montessori Services (LOVE THESE!!  You just gently squeeze and press down to dispense a small amount of glue just where you want it!); a napkin holder which contains small pieces of cardboard (these range in size from about 6X9 inches to about 5X4 inches); tray with collage materials (see photo and description below); tray with 4 green plastic placemats.

NOTE:  On the "middle" shelf, you can see my Cutting Work and Necklace Work.

To do this work, the child takes a basket and places in it a glue stick OR glue bottle, a piece of cardboard, and some tidbits for gluing.  They then take the basket AND one placemat to a table.  Placing the placemat on the table and the cardboard on top, they then glue their pieces onto the cardboard to make a collage.  The placemat is used so that glue (in theory!!) doesn't get on the table.  When finished, the child returns the basket, glue and placemat to the shelf.  I just realized that I need to add pencils to this work so the child (or an adult) can write their name on the collage.  I'm mentally adding that to the list of things to do. 

The collage tray contains (clockwise from top): pieces of colored tissue paper; craft foam shapes (purchased pre-cut shapes); pom-poms; cotton balls; and cut-up pieces of white paper doilies.

I am excited to see how the children like this activity.  It should be easy for all children to do right away in the school year.  I didn't have this out in exactly this manner in my previous Montessori classroom.  However, I did always have a gluing activity on the shelf.

443.........

..........children's books are now nicely organized in my home.  Yes, I just counted them.  Believe me, it took WAAAAYYYY less time to count them than it did to organize them.  The organization process start to finish took about 5-6 hours give or take.  Yesterday I promised to explain what I did and show the photographic evidence.  However, before I do that, I have a question.  Am I one of the few people in the world who would actually go to such lengths to organize their childrens' books?  I have mentioned my little project to several people now and I'm noticing that no one (yet!) has responded with anything remotely like, "WOW!  What a great idea!  I can't wait to go home and do that with my books!"  So, I think I'm sitting a little left of normal here.  Oh well, I am pretty happy with the result of my labors, and as I've said before, that's what really matters, right?

Before I actually dove into the project, I spent a few days thinking about what our book issues were so I had a clear direction for the organization project.  One of our issues was that we have many, many non-fiction books due to my son's interest in all things factual.  These books were getting mixed in with all our other picture books and it was becoming difficult to find specific books when he wanted them.  Also, we had books spread out throughout the house and all mixed together.  For example, my oldest son has 3 shelves (I mean individual shelves, not bookcases) in his room that held books as well as a wooden book holder his grandpa made.  Additionally, I had at least 4 or 5 book baskets strewn throughout the house AND we have a floor to ceiling bookshelf in our office with the top four shelves holding a mixture of books.  Big tall books were intermixed with little short books, so the short books were getting lost, etc.  You get the picture. 

Given these specific issues, I decided that a big part of the reorganizing would be to separate fiction and non-fiction.  Furthermore, I wanted to divide the non-fiction into different categories or genres.  And to keep them easily identifiable, I decided to color-code the spines of the books with sticker dots.  The final step before THE DAY OF REORGANIZATION was to decide which categories to divide the books into.  This will, obviously, be different for every person and family given your specific collection of books.  My categories were:  animal fiction (books with animal characters), fiction, geography, history, reference, animal reference, dinosaurs, art & activity, and poetry.  On THE DAY OF REORGANIZATION (is that getting obnoxious?  for some reason I am liking it in all caps.......) I used scrap paper to write the category names and placed these papers all around on the floor.  NOTE:  Additionally, I had separate papers for series of books such as Mr. Putter & Tabby, Curious George, Magic Tree House, etc.

If you look at yesterday's post, you can see the photos of BEFORE we started organizing.  (My mom came over to help with this yesterday.  Thanks, Mom!) I started by pulling out all the books and placing them in piles.  Then I laid all the category papers out and we started physically sorting the books. 

   

This photo shows part of the piles of sorted books.  Click on the photo if you want to see it larger.

After sorting all the books, we had to decide how we would color code them.  I had purchased a few sturdy baskets from Wal-Mart for the project.  I decided to put all the Magic Tree House and Magic School Bus books together in one basket, and the Mr. Putter & Tabby, Berenstain Bears, and Curious George books together in the other basket.  Then I placed these on one of the shelves in my son's room.  Next to the baskets on the same shelf I put his set of Veggie Tales books.  These books pretty much took up that whole shelf.  On the bottom of that bookshelf, I put all the animal fiction books. 

Here are the books I described above with a close-up of the Magic Tree House/Magic School Bus basket.

The left photo shows the bottom of the bookshelf with the color-coded animal fiction books.  The photo on the right shows the top shelf of another bookcase in my son's room.  It holds the other fiction books.  The bottom two shelves of that bookcase have baskets for miscellaneous toys.

My non-fiction categories included Geography, History, Reference, Animal Reference, Inspirational, Poetry, Art & Activity, and Dinosaurs.  Additionally, I used some magazine holders I had on hand to house our Robert E. Wells books, "I Wonder Why" books, and Math books.

These photos show two of the shelves of non-fiction books in our large bookcase in the office/computer room.

When I was all done organizing, I printed out this color-coded key and slipped it into a page protector.  It is taped to the side of the large bookcase in our office/computer room.

This is the wooden book box that Grandpa made that was previously in my son's room.  Now it is in our living room and from now on will be designated for our library books.  We have also had a problem with library books getting mixed in with the stash.  Hopefully this will help with that issue.

And here is a little bookshelf next to my youngest son's bed in his bedroom.  It is currently home to 113 board books (yes, I counted them).  These books are not part of the color-coding system.  However, many of these books were mixed in with the many other books in the house, so it will be nice for them to have a special home base again.

Here are a few tips I learned along the way.  MOST IMPORTANTLY..........sticker dots do not stay stuck on the books.  Almost immediately they started to peel up.  This was worst on the books with cloth spines, but it still happened on the books with smoother surfaces.  My solution:  cover ALL the sticker dots with little squares of Contact paper.  When I said earlier that the organizing process took 5-6 hours, keep in mind that about 2-3 of those hours were taken up with me cutting and sticking little squares of contact paper on 443!! books all afternoon :0)  I am thinking this is where I get a little over the top.  I just didn't want all the labelling to be for nothing.  Now the dots will (hopefully) stay stuck so my boys can not only easily find the books they want but (equally important) they will also be able to put them back where they belong.  My oldest son is already learning the system and has been able to easily locate the books he wants.

If you are thinking of tackling a project such as this and don't want to get as extensive as I did (in hindsight, I don't think it was that necessary to separate fiction/animal fiction and sticker all of those), I recommend just separating your fiction and non-fiction on different shelves.  This would help tremendously in being able to quickly find the book you need.

I forgot to mention one thing:  I have a big Rubbermaid tub in a closet that holds all our holiday books.  I have LOTS of Christmas books, and some for other holidays as well.  Now they are in one place and I can just pull them out and plop them in a basket when the holiday/season rolls around.

Thanks so, so much!!

I want to thank you so much for all the kind and flattering comments you have been sending me recently.  As of yesterday, the blog has been up and running for 2 months.  It's amazing to me how much traffic on the blog is increasing and what a widespread audience I have.  I think I have been able to reply to each comment personally through email.  However, occasionally that has not worked and I apologize.  Holly commented yesterday, I think, and though I tried several times, for some reason my reply did not get delivered to her.  My apologies to Holly!!

Today has been a crazy, busy day, so I'm posting really late.  I will fill you in on a few things that I've been doing. 

First, the other day I found THE MOST AMAZING THING at my local thrift store.  I've written several posts showing things I find there, but this find TOPS THEM ALL!!!  OK.............below you will see, in living color (bad lighting, however; darn, Kodak Easyshare :0(  )...............an item that every Montessori teacher dreams of finding..............are you ready????

                                     

A basket shaped like the United States!!!!!!!!!!!!! (OK, out of respect for international readers, I will amend the above statement: This is the item all Montessori teachers in the US dream of!!)  Obviously I am exaggerating, but really, I was so excited to find this.  I have been getting my Geography shelf up and running (more photos on that soon, hopefully) and my oldest son and I were just walking around in the thrift shop, and through the back of another shelf I saw what appeared to be something shaped like the US.  I walked around, and sure enough, there it was for only $3.  I was literally going on and on to DH about that basket all day.  It is pretty big.  I am planning to place envelopes in it of all the states for pin-punching, color-coded of course.  It will be easier to show when I'm done than explain that right now.  So........look for more on that soon.

The other big things I've been working on are at home.  I decided (after reorganizing the craft room) to have another garage sale to weed out some of my excess scrapbook and stamping stuff.  That starts tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. and I just finished arranging and pricing everything.  The reason that got done so late is that I also recently decided to completely reorganize all the children's books in my house.  Sometimes I think I'm insane.  I mean, who spends the whole afternoon organizing children's books when they have a garage sale the next day with NOTHING priced or sorted and to top it all off, DH was out of town until about 9:00 p.m.  Let's just say he arrived home to a pretty wacked-out wife.  I know, CRAZY!   But organizing makes me happy, and it will be great when it's done.  So, I will leave you with the BEFORE shots of my book reorganzing project.  Hopefully tomorrow after the garage sale, I will finish the book project and have the AFTER shots to share.

These are all the books I pulled out of my oldest son's room and our office.  Tomorrow I will show you how I reorganized them.  I should point out that when DH came home I pulled him into the office to show him our newly organized system and he LAUGHED!!!  Sometimes, I think he thinks I'm over the top about organizing things.  He's probably right.  But it makes me so HAPPY!!!!!!!!  I just can't help myself :0)

Blog Diary and Freezer Paper Stencilling Part 1

Since I am now a bona fide blog aficionado, the time has come to get more organized with my little hobby.  Like many of you, I am constantly surprised and amazed at all the fantastic things people out there are making and doing.  And honestly, I know my life will only allow me to accomplish a small number of the things that have inspired me.  However, when life allows me the time, I like to be able to quickly find what I need to complete a project or activity.  So..........today I slapped together (literally) a little Blog Diary.  Be forewarned, it is NOT techy at all (well, I did print the labels on the computer so...........).  I basically just took an old notebook (unused) and labelled sections of it with white printer labels.  The categories I included are:  Children's Activities, Crafts, Montessori, Recipes, Resources and Sewing.  These are the types of things I routinely look at online.  I find that if I don't write down where I saw an idea (and I have rarely been writing it down) I usually have a hard time relocating it.  On a sidenote, I just figured out how to use Google Reader and have subscribed to many of my favorite blogs through it.  I am thinking that there might be a feature on there that would do something similar.  But for me right now, I like the idea of having a designated place where I can quickly jot down something for future reference.  This little diary will "live" in the top drawer of my computer desk where I can easily pull it out.  Below are two photos of this "marvelous" creation.  (I am saying that sarcastically in case you didn't catch it; I'm sure many people are already using something like this.)  Oh, and I just remembered, in the back I will write down all my usernames and passwords for various sites.  I kind of have those in another notebook but they are really unorganized.

In the close-up on the right you can see the labels.  I printed them on white labels in Microsoft word and just folded them in half to attach them to the edge of the page.

On a completely different note, last night I tried Freezer Paper Stencilling for the first time.  Several weeks ago, I wrote that I wanted to make 4th of July shirts for the boys.  I found a flag stencil and finally got around to doing it last night.  And I ran into a little dilemma.  See the photos below and be ready to offer me your wise advice.

OK......in the left photo you see the stencil ironed onto the shirt before painting.  I bought the shirts at Hobby Lobby for $3 each and they are kind of a royal blue color.  They look darker in the photos.  At right is one of the painted shirts.  And yes, I actually painted the stars and every other stripe white.  There is the problem.  I think I may need a different kind of paint.  I had bought (at Hobby Lobby) a set of fabric paints.  They are supposed to be 3D, but I figured they would work fine if I used a brush to paint them on.  Obviously, they are not showing up on the blue the way I would hope.  So, I haven't peeled the stencil off yet.  I am planning to shop tomorrow for a different kind of paint.  And here is where I need advice.  Is there a certain type of paint I should use?  Is there a kind that will show up better on a darker color like blue?  I am clueless here.  I'm definitely not giving up.  I think I will really like doing these once I figure out the paint problem.  In fact, I stayed up until 12:30 a.m. looking for more images to use as stencils for future projects.  So..........HELP............PLEASE.............if you've done this before, please send me a comment or email with advice.  I am heading to the "big city" tomorrow where I should be able to find what I need and still get the shirts done by Friday.  THANKS A BUNCH!!!

Ta-daaa! Craft room reveal

I decided to show you the fruits of my labors.  As you have already read, I have been reorganizing at home this summer.  I am very fortunate to have a room in our basement that is my "craft room."  It doubles as a bedroom when my mother-in-law visits and also houses our piano.  However, it is a place where I can go to be creative.  While I have had this space since we moved into this house 5 years ago, I must admit that I have rarely used it to do my actual creating.  Instead, it has housed my supplies and my actual crafting has occurred in the adjacent family room where the TV is!  I confess that I really like to have the TV on to glance up at when I am sewing or scrapbooking.  The downside of this is that I've had 2 tables and all my projects cluttering up our family room area for quite a while now.  DH has requested that I move into my actual craft space.  SO.........last week we had cable TV hooked up in that room and I am good to go.  I need to get down there and start sewing tonight because I have an order for 2 Capri Sun beach bags with a looming deadline!  As always, here are the photos to illustrate what's been going on around here.  Click on any photo to view it larger.

Here is a view of the "crafting wall" from the doorway of the room."  You can see the red pull-out couch in the corner.  This is where Grandma sleeps when she visits.  When that happens, the white table can easily be folded up and stored away.  It is one of those lighter-weight resin ones.  The brown table against the wall will be used for scrapbooking, stamping, as well as cutting out fabric.  There is a drawer organizer slid under the brown table which holds stamping pads and rubber stamps.

This photo shows the inside of the white cupboard pictured in the photo above.  It holds my completed scrapbooks, scrapbooks in progress, scrapbook pages, magazines, idea books, etc.  On the top of this cabinet are two paper files for larger papers.

Here are two photos showing the storage on the shelves above the brown table.  All the three-drawer files except the one on the far right hold 8 1/2 by 11 inch cardstock, sorted by color.  I have drawers for full sheets as well as drawers for scraps sorted by color.  I really do use the scraps a lot and it helps to have them organized.  The drawers on the bottom shelf, far right, hold sewing supplies and are strategically located right above the sewing table.  On the top shelf are tubs with scrapbooking supplies mostly and the black boxes hold our photos.  The little drawer unit on the far right, top shelf, holds sewing supplies, however.

These little 3 drawer organizers all hold scrapbooking supplies.  Decorative scissors, pencils, pens, and other scrapbooking tools are in the mugs and bucket.

On the left is my sewing table.  Cutting mats are on the brown table; you can just see them in the corner.  The basket holds sewing books and patterns.  On the right you can see 2 more storage drawer organizers which are in the bottom of the closet that is directly behind the sewing table.  When I sew, my back will be to that closet.  I have organized the fabric by solid/print on the left and fleece/interfacing on the right.  The bottom drawer on the right has ribbon and yarn.

This is the corner exactly opposite the sewing table corner.  And there sits the TV which is now hooked up to cable!  On the left is a paper holder which can hold 12X12 scrapbook paper.

I am really happy with how this came together.  It's funny, my oldest son was downstairs when I was taking photos and he said, "Your craft room looks really great, Mom!"  That was a completely spontaneous compliment, I might add. 

Because I believe in total honesty in blogging (and in life), I will admit here that I DID move some piles of miscellaneous, yet-to-be-sorted-through STUFF when I took the photos.  I just wanted you (and ME) to have a vision of what is (hopefully) about to be a really organized crafting space.  The only things I think would make this space even more perfect are better lighting (I just have a ceiling fan with lights right now) and some decorative elements.  Unfortunately for the latter, I am working with a bright red couch (I was pregnant when we bought it!) and dark green carpet.  So........I will be looking for some fun fabric in the future to make some throw pillows to spruce up the couch a bit. 

Household organizing tips

I have been asked by a reader to write more about how to organize all the paper stuff that accumulates in our homes.  While I feel, like many people, that I am always having to "manage" papers (and sometimes drown in them), I do have a few things that have worked pretty well that I'll share here.

First, I will address mail.  One habit I have put into practice is to immediately go through the mail when I bring it in from the mailbox.  I can very quickly sort the junk mail out and shred or toss it.  I am a big advocate of recycling, so the paper junk mail gets ripped and placed in our paper recycling bin (a small white trash can in our pantry closet) as does any other newspaper type junk mail.  Slick paper things I don't plan to read (and there are many of those) go in a separate recycling bin.  I can't believe how many catalogs I receive from companies I don't ever order from.  They get promptly recycled.  THEN, the mail we are keeping to go through (i.e. bills to pay) goes into a flat sorter that I've placed in one of our kitchen cabinets.  There is one "shelf" for me and one for my husband.  See the photo below.

You can see it is pretty full on both shelves.  What I love about this is that it isn't sitting all over the counter and I can just close the cupboard door and not have to look at it.  This system pretty much takes care of our mail.

The reader who requested organization tips was also asking about how to manage all those other papers such as school field trip forms, recipes, ideas from magazines, etc.  Well, my solution to all those things is the three-ring binder with page protectors.  I will try to describe my system here.  I have three white 3-ring binders that are stored in my kitchen on an antique hutch.  One is for recipes, one is for calendars, school information, etc., and the third is reserved for housing the ideas I find in magazines that I want to use someday.  See the photos and descriptions below.

Here is my "ideas" binder.  I have made tabs (stick-on tabs attached to the actual page protector) for each season of the year as well as each holiday.  I also have a tab for birthday ideas and one for gift ideas.  You can really customize this however you want.  You could also have one for recipes.  When I come across an idea in a magazine that I like, I just rip out the pages and place them in the appropriate page protector.  (NOTE:  I just use one page protector for each category, however.  They hold quite a few pages.)  Then I recycle the magazine.

This photo shows the Easter file in my ideas binder.  You can see that I've just pulled the magazine articles out and put them in.

The above two photos show the inside of my "household" binder.  In the top photo you can see that I keep larger envelopes in the front pouch and I have placed a little zippered pouch with stamps and pens in the front.  The bottom photo shows one of several pocket pages I have placed inside.  I have used these pockets to hold school information, calendars, etc.

This is a photo of the inside of my recipe binder.  I took the time a few summers ago to type out all our favorite recipes and place them in page protectors in this binder.  I like being able to pull this out instead of leafing through cookbooks to find the recipe I want.  It is also great because I can just take out the page I need and place it on the counter.  It is waterproof in the page protectors and lies flat. Of course, I still use my cookbooks as well, but this has simplified things quite a bit.  I also have empty page protectors where I can slip the recipes friends give me or ones I find in magazines.

I think the binders are a great way to organize information and papers.  They take up very little space on a shelf or counter and can be customized any way you need.  For more information about how I use the binder system in the Montessori classroom, read this post.  Now go out and get a binder and a package of page protectors and get to work!! :0)

Don't "diss" organization

Did you like my little play on words?  I wanted to write again about organization for a couple of reasons. 

First, I am in the process of reorganizing my craft area at home.  Organizing can be frustrating.  There is always a much bigger mess to get to the finished, organized space.  And I HATE that!!  Having two little boys at home, I have only been able to really work on the craft room in little bits while the little guy is napping or after they are both in bed.  Therefore, it is taking a long time and I really want to be down there using it to CREATE!! So, that's one reason I'm writing this post.

Second, when I started this blog, I wrote quite a few posts about reorganizing my office at the Montessori school.  My favorite organization project was my Cubicals organizer that houses all my seasonal items by month.  When I went garage saleing (still don't know if that's a word or if I spelled it right) the other day, I bought several seasonal items and I wanted to show how they fit into that system.

The left photo shows my September "drawer."  At right, you can see all the things that are stored in it.  The 4 boxes of apples I bought at the garage sale went it there.  And it already had other seasonal items like books, shapes, manipulatives, games, and other activities.  I wanted you to see that those drawers really hold a LOT!  And it's great to have it grouped seasonally.  That way I won't forget what I have because it is all together, ready to pull out when I need it.

Accordingly, the Christmas ornaments I bought at the garage sale went in the December drawer, so I will remember to get them out for either PL or a math activity.  The little glass heart dishes went in February, etc.  It's really a great system.

The left photo shows the inside of the September drawer.  You can see that there is still quite a bit of room to put more things in it.  At right is the contents of the February drawer.  I have several bigger items in this drawer, but they still all fit in it just fine. 

Finally, I wanted to explain the title of this post.  As you can see, I am someone who really likes to be organized.  Even so, I never have things quite how I want them (especially at home).  However, I am still really glad I have a SYSTEM in place.  Yes, it took time and even money, but it is so worth it to have everything where I can easily find it.  In the long run, that will SAVE both time and money.  I have been around people who "diss" organization.  I am referring to the people who say things like, "I can never be organized."  OR "I'm so disorganized."  I just want to point out that organization is attainable to everyone.  Yes, it comes more naturally to some than to others.  We all know which side of the fence we fall on.  But everyone (even the chronically disorganized) knows someone who is organized.  My suggestion here is to find one of those people and enlist their help. Chances are they are dying to be asked (I LOVE to help organize, especially OTHER PEOPLE'S stuff!!) and you will benefit greatly in the long run.

OK.............I'm stepping off the (organized) soapbox now.  Hope you enjoyed this post!  If you have any great organization tips, feel free to post a comment.  You are even welcome to email me at the link on the sidebar and send me a photo to illustrate your organizational skills.  With your permission, I will post it on the blog!!

Practical Life storage issues

I received a very good question from Linda in the comments section of one of my posts, so I thought I would reply to it in a separate post.  Linda asked if I am planning to store all my PL activities together as a set when I remove them from the shelf, or will I disassemble them to reuse in other activities.  Without question, I will do the latter.  I store all the parts of the activities separately by type of material (i.e. trays together, baskets together, etc.) so I can easily reuse them in new activities. 

I have mentioned before that I am very blessed in my classroom to have LOTS of great storage space.  In fact, one whole floor to ceiling cabinet is completely devoted to Practical Life materials.  It was set up this way when I arrived.  I snapped some photos of the cabinet yesterday so I could show you.

This photo shows the bottom 3 shelves of the Practical Life storage cabinet.  Directly across from the cabinets is a counter with drawers, a sink, and cabinets above, so I wasn't able to scooch back far enough to get a complete shot.  As you can see, the trays are stored together in a clear plastic tub.  On the same shelf, there are tubs for other types of trays and containers.  The bottom shelf has a laundry basket filled with various baskets.  Large trays are standing upright on the side.  The top shelf of this photo has more containers, jars and baskets.

This shows the top two shelves of the same cabinet with more bowls, containers, baskets and trays.

This cabinet is above the counter with the sink and directly across from the floor to ceiling cabinet shown in the previous two photos.  As you can see, it is used for glass items for the PL area.

There are two of these little storage drawer organizers on the counter with the sink.  They are used for the little things that go into the transfer, dry pouring and spooning activities.

I was thinking about what I would do if I didn't have all the storage I have.  I know that is the situation for many of you.  I certainly did not have this much storage in the classroom in my previous Montessori school.  We had a large unfinished basement in that school and there were some wooden shelves which housed some of the community PL items, but most of our materials were stored in open boxes on the floor.  Anyway, I think I would consider investing in some of the storage containers with drawers on wheels like the one I used in my office (scroll down so you can see the photo in that post).  You can get ones that have only 3 drawers so each drawer is deeper.  I would use the largest one for baskets, and the others for trays, containers, and the little stuff stored in ziploc baggies.  Another advantage to using this type of storage is that you can stack them if you remove the casters on the bottom.  That way you can store quite a bit in a small amount of floor space.  In my previous teaching assignment, we used two 3-drawer units stacked one on top of the other to store all the books we had printed and made from Reading a-z (which is a WONDERFUL resource; if you haven't heard about it you MUST check it out!).