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- Day 1 – Magazine File Boxes
- Day 2 – Boxes
- Day 3 – Baggies and Page Protectors
- Day 4 – Over the Door Shoe Pockets
- Day 5 – Evernote and Dropbox
Today let’s tackle books! Big books. Small books. Readers. Textbooks. Workbooks. Coloring books. Teacher guides. Any kind books.
We usually have groups of books that should stay together whether they are sets or are used together for particular subject. We started using this method last summer. Here’s our solution:
Magazine File Boxes
You can see in our school room post that I use these boxes everywhere. We get the cheap cardboard magazine file boxes from Ikea. The last time we bought a package, they were about 5 for $2. They are easy to move around whatever your shelving/storage space and easy to label.
Here’s are some suggestions for organizing all those books with magazine file boxes:
- Coloring books
- Curriculum sets
- Books by topic or subject
- Pseudo-workboxes
- Writing paper, card stock, or construction paper
- Workbooks
- Portfolio of completed work
- Mom’s teacher guides
- And much more!
Examples from our school room:
I created my own ancient history plan for this year. We have read-alouds and readers that I need kept together. These books are placed in the boxes in the order in which we will be reading them. I used two magazine file boxes for these books and I keep them on a higher shelf away from the boys. When I look at our planning schedule, I pull down any new books we might need for the week.
Labeling ideas:
- Simple sticky pad labels
- Label maker labels
- Laminated cards with velcro dots
- You could even use markers or crayons and decorate them!
- and more!
Have you used this method of organizing? Share in the comments! Leave us a link and show us some pics!
Head over to Sidetracked Sarah to see all the topics and bloggers who are participating in 5 Days of Organizing and Cleaning:
There’s also a bunch of giveaways! Click over and scroll down to see all the awesome prizes!
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I definitely need to get some of theses! I hate how books fall over on bookshelves constantly, and this would be of great help!
Amy, I don’t use them for our slew of children’s books. I tried for a while, but the kids get into them too much and never put them back where they belong. So, that wasn’t a good solution for us.
I used these last year to organize subjects for each kid. Unfortunately, I found that the cardboard didn’t hold up very well & fell apart. I ended up having to duck tape them together. This year I bought the more expensive plastic kind. I hope they last longer!
Yeah, being cardboard the Ikea ones will not hold up to a lot of rough movement. We don’t move ours much. We get what we need out and then put the stuff back when we’re done. I think I’ve seen metal ones at Ikea too.
I love evernote, I have been using it for some time now.
I use EverNote too-love being able to save pages and tag them, rather than just saving to a long list of bookmarks. Converting my bookmarks as I visit (but that’s not very often anymore).
I have a case of these that I bought several years ago to decorate and actually use as magazine holders. I never did that, so maybe I’ll put them together and try out your idea!
I clicked on the photo and all the giveaways are over..
Yes, this series went live a few weeks ago and those giveaways were for that week only. Sorry! I’ve been too sick with my pregnancy to update these posts and remove the giveaways yet.
I’ve been using the same magazine file boxes to tame our home library of children’s books. My favorite point about the cardboard magazine file boxes is that they can be cut to fit the height of your bookshelves!