How to Keep Homeschooling Resources Organized

Okay, time to admit it.  Since I started on this hunt, half of my time has been spent scoring cool resources and websites, books and ideas – right.  The other half of my time has been spent pondering how best to organize all of this cool stuff so that I can find it if I need it!  Talk about trying to climb up on top of the heap.  Just when you find something great, there’s a link, then another link, then a click here and there, and another page or bookmark and another tangent and another idea………good gravy!  And then there’s the library catalog and Amazon and used book stores.  Where do you go with it all?

Straight to the filing cabinet.  Make hanging files for each subject (such as geography, history, math, science, language arts…..) and use file folders as catchalls (in the language arts hanging file make a folder for spelling/vocab, writing, grammar, etc.)  Label them in some fashion that makes sense to YOU.  I feel infinitely better now that the hanging files are in place and already they’ve saved me some time when trying to organize a unit study.

The next time you find a resource you like, jot it down and toss it in the right folder.  Wa-lah!

Oh – and set up a wish list on Amazon.com and use it liberally.  That’s where I tuck everything away and then refer to it when I’m ready to access the local library’s catalog online.  Plus I can check our local used book store’s catalog – if all else fails, I’ll buy it on Amazon used if it’s a must have.