Organizing All Of My "Stuff"

The question has been asked, "How do you organize your homeschool stuff, particularly on your computer?"

I am glad to know that I am not the only one who has folders everywhere on their desktop, and ended up downloading something multiple times because you forgot you had it originally! While I am far from an expert in organization, I thought I would let you know what I am doing to organize ALL of my homeschooling "stuff."

I have been in the process of organizing for a few weeks now and plan on having it finished before September 1st. Obviously, if it was just me at home, I would have had this done long ago, but with two preschool princesses, I have to steal moments when I can. :-)

So what kind of "stuff" am I talking about?

Computer Organization:
While my daughters are only 3 and 2, I have enough unit studies, lapbooks and curriculum downloaded to last us throughout their homeschool journey!! Ok, maybe not that much, but I easily have over 400 items just on my computer. (hmm, could that be why it runs a little slow?)

The first step for me was searching through every folder on the computer to get it all in one big folder called "Homeschool." Within that folder, I set up sub-folders for different categories. My categories include: Art and Music Appreciation, Completed Unit Studies, Religion, Science and Nature, Language Arts, Future Preschool Unit Studies, History and Geography, Math, Planning/Inspiration/Notes/Schedules, Phonics and Reading Instruction, Book Lists, Community awareness and safety, Lapbooking/Notebooking Resources and Educational Games, Handwriting, Extra Curricular, and Writing. The second step was to put all of the homeschool resources into the correct folder and category.

The third step was to open up Microsoft Access and set up a database for all of my items. My table includes the product Title, Folder it is in, Type (unit study, lapbook, resource, etc), Source (author or where it came from), Grade level, Subject 1, Subject 2, Subject 3 and Description. The very act of putting all of my resources into this database has already been a huge help -- I have realized that I downloaded multiple copies of many items! It has also reminded me what I have, items I had downloaded 1 year and a half ago that I totally forgot about (yes, when my girls were only 1 and 2 I was downloading things they would use when they are in 6th grade, HA! But when those freebies come up at places like Hands of a Child or CurrClick, I jump on it!). I am currently about half way done putting all of the information in and will then move onto the next step.

Once everything is put into the database table, my wonderful computer-savvy husband tells me I will be able to create forms that will allow me to search the table and produce reports. This is different then an excel spreadsheet which limits me to only sorting and filtering.

For Internet favorite links, I have done something similar in that I have created folders for different subjects and categories and put the items into that folder. The key for me will be going into this every couple of months and deleting those links that I thought were so cool at the time and really aren't.

Purchased "Hard Copy" curriculum and resources:
I have been blessed to find great deals on various products. On top of several books and products that were either mine or my brother's (thanks, Mom!), I have purchased: Bright Beginnings (preschool program), KONOS Volume 1 (for $10, thank you very much!), Five in a Row products (technically I have only purchased the Before manual and am borrowing the others from my dear friend Marsha, but they are still here currently), Phonics Pathways (another $10 purchase), The Story of the World I (yet another $10 purchase) and a few other things I can't even remember (see why I need an organizational system?!?)

My plan with these sources is to make a list of all of the unit studies and topics covered in all of these sources. I will then put all of the different units and topics into the database that I created for my Computer organization. For the folder, I will put the manual or resource it is in.

Books, Books and More Books:
Again, I was blessed to have my mom save every book I ever read as a child! On top of that, I have been unable to help myself from spending all of my "blow money" on books when I see a great used curriculum sale. We love great picture books and I have been enjoying reading the books recommended for the second - fourth graders myself, HA!

With all of these books, and having them stored in 3 different rooms on 25 different shelves, we need organization here as well. I recently opened up a Library Thing account and am beginning the slow process of putting them all into the system. What I absolutely love is the tags! I had tried to do my own database for this, but this is just so easy :-) I can add as many tags as I want, so I am focusing on putting keywords that make it easy to find for the lessons. I am adding in grade level and the different topics it could cover (including time period, character issues, main character if it is a true or based on a true story, any additional topics that are brought up in the story, etc).

Educational Programs and Movies:
We are all very visual learners. Any time we can watch something on a topic, it either brings the unit to a new level of understanding or creates an interest that will develop into a new unit! We love the ability to look up a topic with our TIVO and find tons of great programs on the unit we are planning. We also love History in general and have recently found the Cable in the Classroom resource, which is just awesome! So, since I have become a History buff since starting this journey and so I can get these resources while they are available for free by recording vs. having to purchase later, I am recording tons of educational programming. Recently, on July 4th, we recorded 14 hours of The Revolution Miniseries! Luckily, my wonderful mother lives next door and has a DVD Burner so we are able to save a lot of these programs onto a small, easy to store disc!

My current plan with this is to get a list of all of my movies and recorded programs, and come up with as many keywords as possible. For example, would this be great to view when studying Horses? American History? European History? Westward Expansion? Five Senses? The list can go on and on. Then I will take this list and input the information into my Library Thing account. I know this is more for books, but I prefer to not have to go to three different places to search for materials if I can avoid it. For the most part, I am pretty sure I will have to input these manually vs. using the handy search function but I would have to do that if I was using a database or spreadsheet anyway.

After I finish all of this, I might move into the various educational games I have. . . we will see how my nerves are at that point!!

So, what about you? What do you do to organize all of your homeschool "stuff?" I would LOVE to hear any ideas or suggestions you have!!