Visual Timer - my favorite clock!

One of my most favorite finds is my VISUAL TIMER that I use both at home and at school.  It has become a HUGE time management component of my eighth graders as well as the contingent I had during July in summer school.  It's sitting across from me RIGHT NOW as I type this as well!

I first saw this from Alejandra's YouTube site  http://www.youtube.com/user/HomeOrganizing and her own website.  She has some great ideas and I needed to find ways to structure my own time at home and in the classroom - to fight off those time vampires (Facebook, Email, etc) to put myself on a schedule to get things done.

My timer can be set up to sixty minutes by just sliding the plastic disk to the desired time.  Unfortunately, my students enjoy setting and resetting (especially when they're NOT supposed to!) but it since it always 'beeps' four times then stops, you don't have to stop what you're doing to turn it off. That makes it convenient to wrap up stuff and then reset it to the next option.  I like that better than other types of timers that keep going until you turn them off.  My colleagues like this one over my 'bus duty' alarm on my phone that sounds like the fire alarm.  (If I leave my phone on my desk in the morning...it continues to go off...oops!)

I also like the fact that it's NOT an overhead model.  I can prop it up on the chalkboard tray and kids in the back of the room can see it.  It also shows the time remaining in an ANALOG way... something that my kids are quite week at in this digital age (It's depressing how many fourteen-year-olds CAN'T tell time on my analog clock!!  I also still use the timer app on my phone, both this type of version and a digital version, but I'm in LOVE with this timer!  I hope to post pictures of it IN ACTION during my lab stations this year.

I bought my two from Amazon, but you can also find information about timers like these at Timetimer.com 

Enjoy! - Stefani

Top 5 to do

Back from a family-filled and relaxing vacation, and swamped with catching up on life now that I'm back home, I figured that an appropriate blog post world be about my TOP 5 on my to-do list. 

Though this changes practically daily, it gives me both immediate gratification of checking those things off my list, as well as slowing chipping away at the larger items by breaking them down into more manageable tasks.  I am a HUGE fan of checking items off of a list or erasing them off a white-board.  I am queen of the post-it notes (almost to the point of being an addict).  I think the one thing that's actually throwing 'my game' right now, is that I've had to change my systems for the last 2 weeks while being gone, and it's taking me a bit to get back into the routine.

Now, back to the list.  For example, today's TOP FIVE list consists of:

1) Wash vacation laundry (an all day task, made easier by the timer app on my phone that lets me know when both washer and dryer are done.  I am IN LOVE with this app!)

2) Pay/Record Bills (the mail was on hold until today, so this will be interesting once my mailman shows up!  Fortunately, I was able to manage both my direct deposit and schedule some bill payments while on the road via a banking app.  Love technology!)

3) Pack boys and myself for scout camp (no app for this.  However, it is broken into two phases:  kid packs; mom checks.  An all day event)

4) Make customer service calls for my home-business and catch-up on e-mails.

5) Visit my neighbor who just retired yesterday.  (ready for this since my first cup of coffee this morning, but SHE'S NOT HOME!!!)

When I'm feeling particularly sluggish or need a good pick-me up, I often make a top 10 list, but have very menial tasks or individual portions of a larger task.  This might seem mundane, but it really helps me feel accomplished during the day.  A sense of satisfaction and accomplishment can go a long way! 

Now, back to checking those things off my list!

- Stefani

My Bright Idea: Color Coded Towels

I was in a white phase several years ago.  A crisp bleached laundered towel was the way to go.  Neutrals were calming.  A bathroom was supposed to be spa-like, serene, relaxing.  My, how times have changed.

Now, our house has exploded into chaos with four teen/preteens who seem to carpet their respective rooms with everything they can get their hands on.  Clothes and towels have become the new carpet in their opinion.  Cleaning their rooms mean shoving everything under the bed or in the closet.  The four hooks in the bathroom are always left empty.  I got tired of opening the cupboard to find there were no towels, yet walking into the laundry room and finding TONS on the floor.  It was never-ending and equally frustrating...

So, after watching my older son be particular about the towels he picked (the towels had to match - either solids or stripes, mixing and matching was NOT allowed, beach towels were not OK to use after a shower but OK to use at the pool) and watching the youngest have piles of once-used towels on the floor that then became a bed for the dog - I had an epiphany:  Color Coding.

Everyone now has their own color.  Two bath size towels each for starters.  If yours are wet and you didn't hang them up after your shower, your fault.  If they end up on the bathroom floor, it's clear who's responsible.  It also makes it easy to identify on the road or poolside (when we branch out into more towels) and eventually, the kids might actually be able to take them on with them when they move out...

The kids got to pick out their own colors (adults ended up with the whites we already had).  Fortunately, there was enough of a rainbow of choices that no one wanted the same color.  And to help, our bathroom is white with color accents, so coordinating, though not the primary concern, still was achieved.  Win-Win!

Color has always helped me organize in my classroom with the variety of students, but extending it into my own home was always a challenge.  Getting everyone on board was tricky - but no teenager wants to walk through the house naked, so that's a big motivator to comply with mom's BRIGHT IDEA!