Diy School Notebook

As school starts, along with it comes a multitude of activities and events.  Keeping up with all of it can surely be a headache especially if you have more than one child.  Well, I have 5 and 3 are in 3 different schools.  So there is always paper, paper and more paper!!  To make it easier to manage, I created this school notebook.

This notebook keeps all the kids papers in order and all in one place.  It is very easy to keep up with everything that gets sent home.  (If the kids give it to you)  I just picked up a regular 3 ring binder with a sleeve in front.  I just made a very basic cover for it and bought dividers to create specific sections in my notebook.  I labeled my sections:  schedules, calendars, handbooks, and then labeled a tab for each child.  So I have 6 sections total in my notebook.

I like to use the plastic dividers with pockets so I can stick things inside them.  In the front pocket of the notebook, I have the large county handbook in the pocket.  I also have some larger packets in there as well.

You can blame baby Cason for that torn handbook. 

The first section is labeled schedules.  In this section, I put all the kids' class schedules.  If I need to bring something to the school or am going to eat lunch with someone, it's easy for me to see where they are and at what time.  Sometimes I will also write in the teacher's email beside the class for easy access to contact information.
()bviously, this isn't a real schedule.  However, you get the idea.)

The next section is calendars.  In this section, I put the school calendars,  county calendars and sports schedules and calendars.  This section helps when I'm planning out the monthly events on the family calendar.

Next is the handbook tab.  We will sometimes get a thin school handbook in addition to the larger county handbook.  I put that here.

The next tabs are tabs for each kid.  Any type of communication from their teacher/school goes into this section:  all of the newsletters, syllabi, parent connection papers, etc.

And here is why I like to use the dividers with the pockets.  Anything that really doesn't need a hole punched in it goes into the pocket.  It is also a good place to store any receipts for anything that I've purchased from the school here.

I absolutely love having this notebook because it makes it so much easier to find everything I need.  I clean it out regularly so it doesn't become a giant mess.  Organized and Neat.  It's just a few more pieces of paper that I don't have to hunt for because they are buried under a mound of them!

How do you keep your kids school papers organized? 

Monthly Activity Planning

Back from a long labor day weekend.  Ours was extra long being that we were also out Friday due to the hurricane and yesterday for a teacher workday.  So today we are back on the grind and back to busy.  This month officially starts a variety of activities for us which means we will be all over the place.  Luckily, I managed to have a system to keep up with it all.  Now, it in no way means that I'll be on time.  It's a nice thought, though. lol

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, then you may have  seen the video of my school notebook.  If not, I'll be blogging it soon. 

So I like to use a large desk calendar that I put on the wall, my school notebook, highlighters and washi tape to decorate and plan out my calendar.

When I finish with it, I like to hang it in the middle of the hall so everyone can see everything.  If there is anything that annoys me most, it's everyone asking me the same thing over and over again.  It's on the calendar.

One of the very first things I like to do when planning out activities on the calendar is to assign everyone a color.  The bills are also in a color.  It just makes it much easier to keep up with each kid's activities.  It also makes it easier for them to spot.  Caleb is 5 and he knows his color is blue.  He knows if he has something that day if he sees blue.  We also try and make sure we put a line through the previous days so he knows what the day is.

Another thing I like to use is washi tape.  Any type of activity or event that spans over a couple of days will have washi tape on it.  It just lets us know that this is an ongoing event.  I also know when it's coming to an end easily and if I need to act soon. 

I start jotting down my events using the events from newsletters, schedules and calendars in the school notebook as well as any others.  As more schedules become available, I'll start adding more events to the calendar.

Then I color code the events and that's it.  Everything is easy to see and find. 

And just so you know how it goes down over here.  Almost everything is done with a baby in hand.  Haha.  Cason is sleeping or else he'd be crawling in the kitchen.  I need to be scheduling a hair appointment!