I am having a hard time orgainizing all of the school stuff. I should start by saying that I was REALLY organized before the boys came. Now, almost 6 years later, there are stacks of stuff everywhere in my house. The kitchen, the stairs, all over my office, in my bedroom...DH still has his Christmas gifts in a pile in out room. I am sure it will remain there until Nov.

I cannot keep track of the homework. It's really not that much in Kindergarten, but I am sinking, and I am really stressed about the future because I know it's gong to get 100 times worse as they get older. They come home with all this work that they do at school...I throw most of it away, but I save the books that they are making to help them learn to read so we can practice...but I never find enough time to practice and there are tons of them. One of them has a moon chart to color each night, they all have ziploc bags to fill with 100 small items for the 100th day of school. 3 library books and they are on this bizarre 6 day schedule so the day is not the same each week. I NEVER get the book returned on time. They are doing this ALBUQUERQUE NOW unit so they are having 2 field trips a week in 3 different classes and I have to remember the carseat all the time. There are sight word cards all of the kitchen and written on my bathroom mirror (White board ink). I manage to get their communications folders done on weekends...it's all on one place and I can take care of it in one fatal sweep.

I guess my question is: Does anyone have a system? Baskets for each kid? Something on the wall? A place for the lunch boxes? A family calendar? My current SmartPhone is not so smart, but I am thinking about upgrading to a Blackberry to keep all the due dates, work functions, childcare hours in one place.

Thanks in advance!

Stephanie

BBB triplets born at 35+ weeks

We don't really have any stuff. They have backpacks, so they come home with their homework in their folders in their backpacks. Each day they are required to go get their homework folders out of their backpack, do their homework, and then I throw out whatever else comes home, which is their work, the fundraisers, and the memos, etc. Then when they are done with their homework, they go put it back in their folders which go back in their backpacks, and they go and put them by the door.

I don't keep anything that comes home or we would look like those crazy people that hoard cats and newspapers. LOL!

Michele
Sarah, Gregory, Amanda
born 1/22/04 at 35w1d

Our surprise baby Austin born 06/15/2005

www.fourtimesthefun.blogspot.com

OMG! I'm a crazy hoarder! But, my cat just walked by so she's still doing well.

Seriously. I love thowing stuff out and I usually do because the clutter drives me nuts. I feel like I'm constantly processing papers.

But, I do keep their little papers and art work. Who knows how long that will last, but I'm doing it for Kindergarten.

I just bought some file folders and a wooden file thing from TJ Maxx and just throw their stuff in the folders.

It looks really good shoved on a bakers rack in the kitchen among all the other crap that has nothing to do with baking.

Lisa

I would start by getting rid of most your stuff - the less you have to organize, the easier it is to stay on top of. I have a small basket in my living room, and nothing other than what is in it is allowed to stay overnight. Same goes for kitchen counter, etc. If you dh has stuff stacked up, he really didn't need/want it, so simplifying by de-cluttering.

We do use a regular printed calendar (google free printable calendar) and then I write everything on it. I dont color code or anything crazy like that - it is too much for me to even think about. I write all our activities on it and that is about it.

When the kids were little, I made a weekly easy schedule and hung it above their coats. It outlined who had library/PE/music on what days. It was color coded since they couldn't read yet, and although I did my best to help them remember every day, I started making sure they understood it was THEIR responsibility to get what they needed to school. It worked - they pretty much run their own gig now in 4th grade.

As for things like the 100 day project - do it first thing, get it back in the backpacks and then you are done. I find that if I set things down to do "later", I get into trouble. For library books, I had a basket and they were to keep them all in that basket unless they were looking at them. Then we always knew where they were. We have yet to lose one.

I am a very undisciplined person in general, but I just had to make going through their stuff a priority every night. Staying on top of school projects/work is just the beginning of staying on top of the activities. Once they got a bit older (2nd grade) I made them charts that listed the things they had to do each day and made them responsible for keeping track - all I would have to ask them then is if they crossed off their list. If it wasn't done, it was their problem, not mine.

And that is a wrap.

Deb
Son, 12
GGB, 10

That is so true, Deb: If I set it aside to do later, it means I'll be in trouble.

The second we get in the door from school, I'm unzipping backpacks and processing papers and packing them back up for the next day.

I refuse to get into the habit of waiting until the morning to deal with what needs to be done.

Here is what I do and it works well for me.
I have baskets for each of them that I keep under our bar, where we should have bar stools but this works better for us right now. When they get home from school they take off their school shoes and place their put the contents of their back pack in their basket. While they have a snack I look through the basket, review their agenda, sign it and organize the homework, which is then placed in an accordion file folder, one slot for each child. Homework is all due on Thursday, we normally get it all on the Friday before, however there are some days that work they did not finish in class that day is sent home as well. We, for the most part, do homework on Wednesday afternoon (this does not include their reading which is done every night right before bed)

I have a family calendar up on the wall where I put down important dates, events at school things they are doing etc, so any new thing that comes home in the back pack gets added to the calendar. Most of the informaiton is on it already as it is a school generated calendar.

Sight words, I got them from a teacher's store, they are removable stickers that I put on the refrigerator. They have to go over them every night prior to going upstairs to do our bed time routine.

I do not make their lunch, I am sorry but they can eat school lunch. they offer PB&J everyday, with everything else I have going on they can eat there.


For their jackets I have hooks outside our door, in the garage, they have to hang their coats up before coming inside. The key is teaching them to do some of the things for them selves. They even get their own snacks the night before and place them in their back packs.

Good Luck

BBG Triplets Born March 31, 2004
31 weeks three days
Douglas
Kalie and
John Michael

Man!!!! I'm so glad to see that I'm not the only one who may flunk kindergarten!!! You have definitely helped me to feel better!!

Cat w/3 Kittens
Caidan, Carina and Caeleigh
Born at 31 weeks, 1/8/04.

I feel your pain. Our house is overrun with papers. Everytime I try to throw papers away they say those are special ones. I have sorted through their work a few times when they are gone but still have tons of worksheets they've gotten from school. A lot to get used to when you have 3 kids all of the sudden bringing home lots of work they are proud of.

We did get a huge calendar to put all our activities on that we have up in the kitchen. That helps some. Still takes some discipline to make sure the info they bring home from school gets on there each week.
Can't wait to hear more ideas from everyone,

Andi
g/b/g
6 yo triplets
in Kindy

Wow, am I glad I'm not the only one that struggles with this. I love organization, being unorganized makes me very nervous and out of control. I have to be somewhat organized to feel like I have handle on things.... So I do a few things that help, but let me tell you it doesn't take much to feel like I’m losing it =)
I mostly congregate everything in one room, our laundry-mud room:

-One basket for artwork or papers I want to save, (eventually I would like to put them all in some kind of scrapbook). I go through the folders each night, MOST goes right into the recycle bin and occasionally I put some stuff in this basket.
-2 plastic folder bins. 1 - is for all the homework stuff. The other one is for the books they make, or learning material we may reference later. I put the library books her too.
-Bulletin Board - I hang notices, forms, anything I may need to address or fill out at a later date.
-Calendar hangs on the wall with all dates, appts, activities, listed.

Every night, the first thing I do when we come home is unpack the folders. I Sort the paperwork.
If there is something I need to order, fill out, return (or something like that) I do it right away. Even if its not due for weeks, as soon as it comes in I send it right back. It helps me to not have stuff like that hanging over my head. (its confusing enough inside there and I certainly don't need any extra muddling it up LOL). If there are dates, for events, things due, future activities, I write it down immediately on the calendar and throw the paper away.
BDAY RSVPs, if I can I RSVP right away, otherwise I would forget. If I can't, I write down on the calendar the RSVP by Date and phone number. All of this takes about 10minutes and is well worth it. The backpacks get repacked and hung on hooks by the door ready for the next day.

I am so looking forward to more responses so maybe I can add a few more tricks to my routine. But hope some of this helps you in the meantime! =)

Liz
Mom to
Cole and Troy Feb/2004 28weeks
^Clay^ Dec/2003 20 weeks

Here's what I have
6 stacking drawers
clipboard
color-coded magnetic clips, one for each kid
8 bento-style lunch boxes from the COntainer Store

The kids bring home their homewor for the week on Monday, and I put all that on their clips on the fridge.

The school calendar goes on the top of my clipboard and any of that garbage I have to keep track of goes underneath it with a note on the calendar for anything that requires action (school plays, book orders, etc). The lunch menu goes there, too.

Any finished work worth keeping goes in the "Keep forever dawer" labeled with that kid's name. At the end of the year everything gets put in a color-coded colder and boxed up.

I pack lunches two days at a time because I HATE that job. I used reusable boxes so there are no baggies or anything. The boes fold up and stack nicely in the fridge. I make lunches on Sunday night and Wednesday during the day - they buy their lunches on Wednesday.

We have pre-school style cubbies by the only door the are SUPPOSED to use. Shoes go on the bottom, coats are hung up and they can keep their personal junk in color-coded bins on the top shelf. IN THEORY everything gets stowed as they walk in the door, but they are sloppy about it.

All that realy helps me keep my sanity and not forget to show up for Star Student celebrations and such. Hope that helps. I really love out clips - they are people-shaped and super-strong!

Ali (purple)
Jack (blue), 8 1/2
Abraham, Dylan and Zane (yellow, green, red) 6 1/2
and now . . . . Tobias (orange), new last June!