Mother Goose Time: Organizing Leftovers

I love that little school bus box, don’t you?  It is jam packed with awesome goodness for me and my little girl to play, learn, and discover together. 

However, for a pack-rat like myself, I just can’t bring myself to throw away so many wonderful things! Maybe it’s because my husband doesn’t want to invest in a color printer… I don’t know… but the thought of throwing away some of the fabulously colorful items just makes my teacher brain scream, “No!!! I can use that again!”

Anyone else?

I am a former teacher.

I am a crafter.

I am a mother of a toddler.

Anything can be used for learning.

I have absolutely no storage space for a box.

I am NOT throwing away this stuff! 

So with those facts laid out, the question becomes:

How am I going to store this stuff with limited space?

Organization happens best if you invest in the right tools from the beginning.
I know in the binder department this might seem a little steep at $9.99; however,
IT IS PERFECT!

Please allow me to share the LOVE for this particular binder.

    
Sheet protectors are the way to make things last.
I know… $22.19 for sheet protectors!?!? but this is a pack of 200. I used 22 on this month of storage…I will get 9 months of storage out of this one box.
That comes out to $2.47 per month on storage.
And trust me… compared to Walmart and some other brands of protectors out there I have used,
these are so worth it.

Sorry for the sales pitch there friends, but seriously, I have wasted so much money buying something I didn’t like, couldn’t return, and then having to buy the better thing in the end.
I just don’t want it to happen to you too.

Back to the organization…
Each day is stored in its own sheet protector and I can toss any other items in there with that day’s materials if I need to.

You can see that I added the little cards stored in a snack size baggie that went with the Living/Non-living activity in the left hand protector.

The last protector has the Celebration Kit in it.

Mother Goose Time also sends loads of little things that I reorganize into our regular supplies.  For instance: the foam die went into our math manipulatives; the red pompoms went into our collection of pompoms; the extra colored paper went in with all our construction paper, ect ect.

In the end, I was able to compress all that awesome goodness in the
School Bus Box into a 2 inch binder.
And whenever Sweet Pea starts asking about magnets, or mixing things, or how things change and grow, I can flip open the Science binder, grab my teacher guide, and do those wonderful little activities with her once again.

Oh, how I love to be organized!
(most of the time this is a wish, but sometimes, I do get it done)