My Name is Deanna... and I have a problem

Oh, my word y'all I need a 12 step program!  I have a huge problem with collecting things.

I started cleaning out my closet and trying to organize and throw things away.  THROW THINGS AWAY??!!!!  That is soooo hard!!!  I started by taking all of my math stuff out of my closet.  I had stuff ALL over the room.  This is just a little section of the mess. 

Notice the Sonic coke.  That helps right? :)

Here's how my Math Manipulatives ended up looking.  I got them all organized, labeled and in containers.

Here's a close up of the closet.  My closet is deep so there are also containers behind the ones in the front.

To make sure I know what's in the back I hot glued labels to the side of the cabinet.  Notice the labels on the left.  That is letting me know that there is a container of bears and another container of pattern blocks in the back.   

Okay... so what is the problem you ask?  The problem is that I can't throw things away.  Remember the picture at the top?  That is a tee-tiny bit of my eraser collection.  I love themed erasers.  LOVE!!!  I think having access to different manipulatives keeps the kids excited and engaged.  They can be doing the exact same game that they did last week but if the manipulatives are different they think it is a brand new game.  So.... I'm sorry Debbie Diller.  I just couldn't do it.  Not even a little.  But I did get them organized.

Here they are.  You're probably saying to yourself, "that's not so bad.  You only have 12 containers."  Well remember when I said the cabinet is deep?  Yep.  There are two more rows of containers behind these.  So that's 36 containers of erasers.  And the bad thing is there is another shelf below this one with more containers of erasers.  My name is Deanna and I have a problem.  But at least it looks neat! 

Thanks Debbie.  :)

 

That took care of all of the manipulatives.  Next I had to decide how to store all of the big stuff and the games and such.  I can't tell you how many times I've found a game or activity way too late that I forgot I even had.  So I needed a way to organize it so that I would remember to use all of the good stuff that I have.   I got five large containers and I'm going to make cute labels for them.  One will be labeled Patterns and Shapes, Measurement and Money, Addition and Subtraction, Data Collection and Probability, and one will be labeled Number Sense.  This is what the bins look like.

 

Here's a peak inside the one for Addition and Subtraction.  You will see both homemade and store bought games, and my container of dice in dice. (these dice didn't go in the container labeled Dice because I only use these when I'm teaching addition and subtraction)  I really think this type of organization is going to work for me.  Yay!  for organization. 

Once I make my cute bin labels I will upload them here to share.  I plan to work on my language arts stuff next.  I have no idea how to even begin there!  Whew!  :)