Organizing Work

I am organized-challenged. I have fought this my whole life. I want to be organized, but I get overwhelmed and "stuck" not knowing what to do. I have however, found a great way to organize my paper materials. Shown in the picture is my color word matching work/number word matching work. I have the control card in the plastic pocket and I have the color cards and the word cards cut out and secured in a plastic baggy. The plastic pocket has an overlapping top so the materials do not slip out easily. This allows me to secure the work in a large binder, waiting at a moments notice until it is ready for me to make it available to my children. I prepare many lessons in advance and then cut them out and have them ready in pockets such as these, so the night before I am ready to introduce them, I can just open my binder, pull out the pocket with materials and then place them in the container that will be used by my children. This is also a great way to store materials "in between children." I've had instances where my older children have "outgrown" or decided that they were done with the material for a while, so I file it away and then bring it back to see if they are interested at a later date, or when it is time to introduce it to my youngest child. I purchased the plastic pockets at an office supply store and the number word/color word match cards seen in the post are available at montessoriforlearning.com