Organization

With the start of school, begins the deluge of papers.  Papers for the kids to sign up for things.  Papers to provide emergency information.  Papers to say I will volunteer.  Papers, papers, papers!

Our dining room table collects more clutter then usual. 

Both kids come home with a homework notebook, where they write their daily assignments.  Which currently needs to be signed every night.  We are not suppose to go asking about signing it.  That job is the kids' responsibility.  We give Josh more leeway with it than Ellie. 

I came up with a system.  I put a hanging file holder accessible in the dining room with a "to do" folder and a "completed" folder for each child.  They are suppose to put the notebook and anything else we need to look at, sign and return in the "to do" folder, then after signing it, we put it in the "completed" folder.  There is also a "reference" folder for papers that we need to ... reference.  Then when they pack their bags, they can easily get their papers and pack up and not be required to hunt us down.

I thought it was a great system.  But it hasn't really been working.  Certain children folk don't like it, balked at it emphatically, and don't really use it.  And the other one, keeps it in a binder and would rahter not have to remove it each time.  There has been a bit of a scramble in the morning, asking us to sign books at pack up time.  We need to rethink things.

Another area of striving for better organization is in lunch packing.  Myrtle sent me an article showing bins with prepackaged food/snacks for children to grab as they pack their own lunches (plus a whole host of other good lunch articles.)  I've tried to do my version of that.  Since I don't buy many prepackaged snack bags and such, I've purchased more plastic containers to package our own food.  While I'd rather not use plastic at all, I know the limits of our budget.  The plastic containers are not as good as stainless steel, but they are better then baggies or buying a lot of prepackaged food.  I have decided to just buy containers of yogurt instead of making it, because I know the kids will eat it.  I also will be buying granola bars, because again it is just easier to buy them. 

I am still planning to make my own fruit leather.  It is not hard to make, I have some good recipes and the kids will eat it. 

Now the next frontier is cleaning up after themselves.  When they go to bed, it is not uncommon to find their treasures strewn about.  I remind them throughout the day, but I forget to make sure it happens before they go up to bed.  Last night they didn't take care of some things, so I made them come back down after they were already in bed to take care of it.  Tonight they also both had to come back down to take of some things. 

A little at a time.