Mission Organization!

I am one of those people with WAY too much stuff!  I find something super at the dollar store and need to buy 24 of it so I have one for each kid.  But what if somebody breaks one or loses it?  Better get some extras!  I end up with 30 wonderful treasures and have no place to store them! I am a hoarder (not as bad as the ones you see on TV, but I am aware that I have a problem!)  I am an "organized" hoarder though!  I want to collect everything that exists, but I want it to have a home.  I have found some TERRIFIC storage solutions this year!

A wonderful husband came up with the idea of putting shelving along the ceiling in his wife's bathroom.  (All of our classrooms have bathrooms at my school.)  These shelves are all the rage!  He has put them in all the rooms pre-k to first.  I have heard that there are more grades hoping to benefit from his handiwork!  This picture shows the shelves in my bathroom.  I lined the shelves with milk crates.  The crates hold seasonal items that I do not need a lot of access to. 

My aide came up with another SUPER idea to store our flashcards under the shelves.  I have sets of math flashcards for each student at many levels.  They are difficult to store.  I had this piece of peg board in a corner of my room last year.  By putting the pegboard under the shelf, the cards easily hang.  They are out of reach of the kids and now they are not visible from inside my room.  An added bonus is the space between the shelf and the peg board.  I have filled this space with borders and sentence strips.  I am telling you, I need every inch of space I can get!  This has gotten me SO much storage and taken NONE of my floor space.  I love it! 

 

 Unfortunately, since I am such a collector of STUFF, I had LOTS of lids stored in my room.  My aide tried to talk me into throwing them away today.  Can you believe that?  Throwing away perfectly good lids?  What if I decide that the containers need them someday and they are in a landfill somewhere???  I bought some BIG containers and my kind custodian has stored the lids at an undisclosed location in the school!  Custodians are the BEST!  Between the storage I gained in the bathroom and the space that has been freed up by the lids, I have empty spots on my bookcases!  I am SO happy to be free of some clutter!  I PROMISE not to go back to the dollar store!  That place is nothin' but trouble!  One of my major goals this year is to sort through some of the junk that I have accumulated over the years. 

Do you have any organizational difficulties or successes to share?  Share what works or doesn't work in your room in the comments below!