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Home : 2003 : January : 23

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By Patricia

I am in the process of going through all my stuff and organizing too! I bought two tall filing cabinets from Office Max and am putting my stuff only in them. One of the drawers, in the bottom, is for my magazine collection!
I bought a box of file holders and stripped the folders off until I had a pile of the metal hangers only! Then I slipped one into each magazine. Then I took 7 hanging files and labeled them as follows: August/September, October/November, December/January, February/March, April/May, June/July, and Misc... Then I hung the magazines according to the month listed on them so if I need

to find an idea for January then all I have to do is grab the magazines from the section marked January! I love how easy it is to grab the month I need and then toss them back in!

Here is something else to think about when organizing your stuff. Last year I took over a class mid-year because the teacher had suddenly died. When I went through the room I discovered that she had been a collector of all and so went through, packed everything with her name and sent to her husband, tossed the trash, gave other teachers stuff, and then kept what was relevent to the grade and then set to work to organize. The biggest problem was the lack of an inventory of personal stuff and school stuff. Some things had her name on that were obviously personal and then she also wrote her name in huge letters all over a good portion of school property. Brand new math and reading curriclulum had been adopted that year. So I went through and labeled everything left in the room as being school property and the grade level with a letter of the alphabet that would id the stuff as going together. Then I began the long and still ongoing job of labeling my own stuff with my name and a (p) to show what was mine and a detailed inventory because I don't want to put another teacher through what I had to do. The teacher that died had been a friend from our school days and the way I found out about her death was in the interview. So going through all that stuff made it really hard because I would cry when I found stuff she had made. As for my vast collection of resources? They are in abc order in 5 of the other drawers, and the two remaining drawers I plan on organizing bingo games and such! Just be sure not to store school property with your personal property because if you change grades or leave for whatever reason then all you have to do is take out your own stuff that is easy enough to grab. I even have rubbermaid shoe boxes organized with my own manipulatives and labeled as personal. Sorry to go on so long but I am an organizational fanatic who is finally organizing her own home! Good luck on your venture! Just keep it simple so you don't drive yourself crazy! I am even using Excel to make an inventory of all I have! Good to have in case of theft or fire! I even have my ISBN numbers.