Activity Organizing

[kcnjason]

I seem to post a lot about organization~ I have browsed the site for organizing ideas of what I am looking for, didn't find what I wanted so I now am asking for help.
I have papers of Rainy day activities, circle time, games, preschool crafts, etc and these are all sheets of paper and I find tha I put them anywhere and then I find myself searching for where I put a certain paper. What do you do to organize all of your "free" papers? Do you have a 3 ring binder that you seperate all of your papers in? Just some ideas....I like to get other ideas so I may see what will work best for me.
I have a 3 ring binder for preschool papers (letters, numbers, name tracers)
3 ring binder for holiday crafts, 3 ring binder for our curriculum...it seems that I have 3 ring binders for everything and I have very little space. Should I condense these binders? Again, any suggestions would be great!!!

[PolarCare]

I use plastic drawers

I got this set of plastic drawers in the organizer section of Wal Mart. It's got 3 big drawers on the bottom, then 2 medium size drawers, and the top 2 are pretty shallow. Like about the size of a ream of copy paper. In fact, that's what I usually store in the 2nd drawer. Anyway, I use that organized for arts and crafts supplies, scissors, glue sticks, pom poms, the whole gamut.

It comes in black or white and all the drawers are clear. It's not expensive and super efficient spacewise. Also, it rolls on casters. I store mine in a linen closet when we aren't using it.

[melskids]

for papers, i use three ring binders. i seperate into clear page protectors....and make a master list of whats in each one and stick that in the inside cover of the three ring binder. i have about a dozen of them, and they are on a small bookshelf i have next to my computer.

[kcnjason]

Activity Organization

I have posted in the past about needing organization ideas for craft supplies, however now I'm looking at ways to organize all of the paperwork. Not the paperwork for daycare itself, but the papers for preschool, learning, writing, activity pages, craft pages, etc. I think I will just need to stick to the 3 ring binder and try to condense so I have less around the house unless I see a post from someone else with a better idea.

[DCMom]

I haven't found a better way than binders and sheet protectors for single sheets. I have one for letters and numbers, one for holiday/seasonal, one for misc themes. Realistically, they take up very little room and you just make copies from the master.

[Abigail]

If you really need to condense, I would use the those folders without pockets and keep them in a hanging file system. You can group things together in folders according to season or theme:

Folder for Alphabet
Folder for Numbers
Folder for Colors
Folder for each holiday, etc.

Another good organization tip I have is how to store all your wall posters and window clings. Buy an under-the-bed plastic storage container. It is big enough to store medium sized posters and plenty big for all the window cling pages you can imagine. It stores nicely under a bed. Remember, if you store it under a bed in a room daycare kids don't usually enter you can still claim it on your space ratio since it's regularly used for daycare. LOL

[LittleD]

You could use an accordion file folder. I use those for all of my seasonal sheets. I go with the 3 ring binder for day to day activities, master sheet in a clear sleeve with the coppies behind it.

[Lianne]

I use banker boxes like these

http://www.amazon.com/Storex-Letter-Locking-Handle-61530U01C/dp/B001P5GFNA/ref=sr_1_3?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1307966775&sr=1-3

I add hanging files for each theme then use file folders to hold different craft ideas/extras, felt stories, games, circle time plans, etc. The file folders are stored in the hanging folder and some themes need 2 or 3 hanging folders now. I file the themes alphabetically and I'm up to four of these boxes for all my themes