Day #3: My Themed Unit Boxes

In my last post I talked about the Unit Theme Numbering System that I inherited from my mother, and how much it helps me keep my teaching materials organized.  I file all of my papers and books with this system.

However, I have a number of teaching items that I do not file with the number system.  These are my larger items, such as all the puzzles, things to sort, props, etc. from each theme.  These I put into my Theme Unit Boxes.

My favorite type of boxes are the clear, plastic boxes that can actually hold hanging files.  However, they tend to be a little expensive.  A few Christmases ago when they were on sale I used some gift money to buy about 20 of them.  However, I always seem to be gaining stuff, so I quickly fall back on cardboard boxes for all of the overflow.

Here the clear plastic boxes are, all stacked up and ready to go in my garage:

As I mentioned above, I usually find myself accumulating more stuff than will go in one of these boxes.  So while I am waiting to buy more plastic boxes (or until I sort out enough stuff to make everything fit together in one box), I will put extra themed items in cardboard boxes.  While doing this, I find that these are two of my favorite tools: Post it label tape and a Sharpie.

Here are the tape labels in action:

What I most often do when I find that I need another box is to make the cardboard box a temporary one.  I add a label with the post-it tape, and then add a second label that tells me that this cardboard box is one of two boxes that I have for this theme (in this case, one of two farm boxes).

I then stick another label on the original theme box to remind myself that I have two farm boxes now:

If later I decide that I really am going to keep two or more boxes from one theme, I add the "1 of 2" or "2 of 2" markings to the actually "fancy" theme label, as shown here:

The theme labels are ones that I made  on the computer.  After I made this first set (shown in the photographs), I later went back and re-designed them. The redesigned ones I now sell in my teacher stores.  Here's how they look:

You can purchase these labels here and here, for only $2 for all 29 labels. 

Those are my unit boxes, which help me keep my bigger teaching items in order.