How is your school kid doing this year? Have you noticed difficulty in organization or asking yourself, where do I put all these papers. How long do I need to keep all the graded work? Where do I begin? Now that school has been going for a while, you may want to evaluate your organizational situation.
Peter Walsh would like to help answer some of these questions. He has set up some organizational tips for the classroom, backpack, home office, etc.
Organization in the Classroom:
- Color Coding: Color coding things like words, symbols, etc helps kids to remember the subject easier.
- Attend Parent/Teacher Meetings: This will give you a different perspective on your child and how they react to situations when away from home. You may know your child well or hear things that may surprise you. Teachers appreciate feeling respected, your attendance can demonstrate this to them.
- Teacher's Gift: It has always been the thing to give a teacher an apple. Teachers would rather receive school supply donations. A lot of the decorating costs come out of their own pocket, not covered by the school.
- Organize: If the kids are involved with organizing their own things, they feel more a part of it and learn to love it even more.
Organizing the Backpack:
- Teach your child how to properly use their backpack: Large compartment for books, medium for lunchbag, small for pens/pencils and other smaller supplies. Help your child decide what goes where.
- Each evening, have your child show you their backpack. Help them organize any papers that they may have taken home or any extra items that may have been picked up along the way.
- If you show concern for organization, your child will have a greater respect for it and see the importance.
Tips to Organize:
- Show the value of organization in your own things. Have a place for your mail, keep things orderly in your home, teach them to put laundry away right away, etc.
- Establish clear limits and routines. Kids are very routine oriented. They thrive on discipline and order. The more you can help them with this, the better they will feel about the world around them.
- Always "finish the cycle". Whatever organization you start with them, make sure you keep up with it. If you slack even for one day, the cycle can be broken and you have to start all over.
- Be sure to use the right tools for organization. Figure out what you need to organize what your child has, get it and be sure to teach them how to use it properly and regularly.
- Organization relieves stress and gives your child confidence. Where there is chaos, their is stress. I'm sure you have witnessed that in your life. When your house is a mess, you feel stressed. Your kids experience the same things when things are chaotic in their lives.
- Set out or have them pick out their clothes the night before. This way they are not rushed in the morning to get ready and stress over what to wear. If they pick it out the night before, you will know if they need socks washed, etc.
Tools for Organization:
- Organize their pencil case: Seperate pens/pencils, glue & scissors, etc into different sections fo the pencil case. The best kind to use is the ones with seperate zipper compartments for optimum organization.
- Binders: Ask their teacher what needs to be kept in the binders to be brought to school everyday and what can be stored at home. Label the binders with a labeler. Be sure to regularly empty out the binders to organize excess papers at home.
- File Cabinet: Be sure to have a file cabinet available for papers to be kept in for the year that doesn't need to be in the binders to and from school daily.
Organizational Tips for Home:
- Find a vision that you have for their home work space. Whether this be their own desk or a desk that they share with you &/or others in the family. It is optimum for them to have their own individual work space to organize and keep orderly.
- Make organization a family value. Make sure everyone in the house considers organization important. This mindset is contagious and very helpful!
- Once you visualize the work space, attain the proper equipment to make it orderly easiest.
- Desktop Organizers: Whether this be expandable file folders or file cabinet, or bins to organize.
- Pencil Cup: This will help you and your child know where their supplies are and get to them easier. If you need several to keep things seperate. For instance, one for pens/pencils, markers, colored pencils, crayons, etc.
- Drawers: Organize the drawers with other supplies like stapler, ruler, calculator, protractor, etc.
Peter Walsh and
Office Max have a line of material that can help with getting your home and children organized. This line is called the [IN PLACE] SYSTEM. I have really learned to love this system and it's organizational benefits. If you are looking for helpful material, be sure to check out the line at
Office Max.
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