Refrigerator Organization

I had finally had enough of our disastrous refrigerator! It was a mess. Old salad dressings, 3 containers of half eaten salsa, 14 bags of shredded cheddar cheese. I have a bad habit of buying a bag of shredded cheddar cheese every time I go to the store so you can imagine how many were expired! I was over it! I needed to fix our fridge!!

BEFORE 

I told you it was a disaster! Look at that hot mess of a fridge!  It's actually kind of embarrassing! I started with a trip to Dollar Tree and found cute black and blue bins that are two different sizes.  Would have rather had all the bins the same color...OCD kicking in...but oh well! So I bought 5 little blue bins and 4 little black bins.  I thought if I didn't use them all I could use them in my classroom or find some other use of organization with them in my house. 

I first started with the side door.  Took everything off, wiped them down and sorted it.  Boy did I throw lots of junk away!  Then I moved to the shelves.  I took everything off the shelves, wiped them off and then sorted those as well.  I decided the top shelf was going to be beverages,  the second shelf is misc. items with a bin for salsa, butter, sour cream, etc.  There is also a bin for breakfast items such as biscuits, applesauce, pudding, etc.  Our next shelf is for leftovers.  Under that we have our meat and cheese drawer.  The next drawer is for fruits and vegetables.  Yes 2 bins fit in there.  The last drawer is for meats such a bacon, hamburger, roast, etc. 

 

*My next step is to label each bin. 

AFTER

Close up of my fruit and vegetable drawers. 

Megan's Recipe Binder

Good Wednesday Morning!!!!! Here we go again.  More binders!

So some of your kitchen drawers or cabinents probably looked the same as mine.  You know--someone gives you a recipe on paper or you print it off the computer and you have no where to put it but shove it in a drawer or if you were like me I folded it and put it in my recipe cabinent.  I had tons and tons of printed off recipes and recipes that people had given me and it was driving me nuts.  So I found on pinterest (imagine that) a recipe binder that I knew was just calling my name for me to make!

What you will need :

a 3-ring binder-I used 1 1/2 inches but I think I will be upgrading soon

dividers ( I used Avery)

clear plastic sleeves

cute paper (I got my super cute paisley paper from Office Max)

construction paper--optional

I started by making my tabs off the computer.  On www.avery.com you can pick the labels that you bought and it will give you a template to upload in a word document so your labels are just right!

In this picture its hard to see my labels on the tabels but they are there.  You can kind of see the word breakfast on the top tab.  Here are the tabs I used:

*Breakfast

*Appetizers

*Sides

*Soups/Salads

*Poultry Entrees

*Beef/Pork Entrees

*Crockpot

*Desserts

*Beverages

You are probably wondering where the fish/deer meat receipes are.  That's my husbands area of expertise and he just gos with the flow when it comes to cooking deer and fish.

I then started putting all my recipes into the clear plastic sleeves.  Some of them I had to retype because they were written in pencil and were starting to fad. 

On some of the recipes that weren't a full sheet I cut them down in size and was able to put more than one recipe in a clear plastic sleeve.  I used construction paper and tape to make it pretty.

After filling my plastic sleeves with recipes I then got my cute paper out.  I tested a piece of white paper in the printer first so I knew which way it would print out so I wasn't wasting any.  I then typed up all my sections in Word and printed them out. 

Classroom Organization

I LOVE ORGANIZATION!  I can't get enough organization in my life, although sometimes it makes my head spin.  It's just who I am.  Those of you that know me know I have OCD tendencies and love being organized, making labels, labeling things etc.  Not only is my house organized but so is my classroom. 

I have been teaching now for 4 years and created these weekly drawers for my planning.  I get a lot of my students work off the computer because being a Special Education we don't have many resources such as Reading books, math books, etc.  All my students are on individualized plans so getting all of their printables off the internet makes it easier for me.......so back to 4 years ago, I created this weekly drawer for when I am doing my weekly lesson plans.  I do day by day and when I print something off or need to use a specific workbook I just slide it right in the bin so I don't have to go searching for it the day of! Makes my life so much easier when I get to work in the mornings.  No I didn't get this off of Pinterest.....this was so 4 years ago "pre-pinterest"  haha!

Also at the beginning of the year I buy packages and packages of pencils for those kiddos that like to stand at the automatic pencil sharpener.  Well I hate when they come in plastic packaging.  So I comebine them all into one specific spot and my students know they can get one out at anytime.  Also in this drawer I put a bucket of erasers for them to use when they wear their pink little eraser out.  I also do the same thing with pens and highlighters.  The bottom drawer contains flash cards that I have accumulated throughout the past 4 years.  And of course its all labeled!!!! Would you expect anything less??

 

Here is one I made for myself that goes on top of the white drawers.  It's for those awesome smelly markers that all the kids love (they are on top), magnets and labels,  stickers for our charts and tickets for good behavior and just being awesome in general!



Because I don't have many resource books to use I have 3 different filing cabinets full of reproducible books to use for my kiddos.  Of course those are labeled and organized too according to subject on the outside.  Once you pull out the drawer it is organized by concepts. 

I also have a bookshelf that is full of those printables I get off the internet.  They are sorted by subject and inside the binders they are divided into concepts such as time, money, addition, subtractions, etc.

Not only do I do this for myself but I also do it for subs.  If there were ever an emergency and I couldn't be there the substitute could pull items from the cabinent or from the shelf and use them for the class that day.  Hope I'm not boring you all too much and you find some of this helpful!