Organizing All of our Stuff...Part V

I keep thinking I'll come to the end of these "Organizing" posts...but, there's just way too much to organize around here!  Well, here we go... on to post number 5!  You can catch up with I HERE, II HERE, III HERE and IV HERE if you would like!

Now, if you have complete collections of songs on an Mp3 player, keeping track and organizing Cd's may not be an issue!  I simply don't think most preschool classrooms are ready to completely do away with Cd's.  If we're going to keep them, we need some way to keep TRACK of them! 

Quite a few years ago, I decided I was sick and tired of messing with CD cases and those bulky plastic holders for the Cd's.  For a while I tried a small vinyl CD holder.  It worked...but not well.  I ended up buying a MUCH larger vinyl CD holder with 4 CD spaces in each sleeve, rather than only one or two spaces. 

This has made all the difference in the world!  Before, I would have to fight with finding the song number for any CD that didn't have the songs listed directly on the CD itself.  Now I simply slide the CD in one section of the sleeve and opposite this, I slide the list of songs. This case holds a total of 208 Cd's. (...if you use every space for Cd's.  Since I am using one side for the song lists it obviously doesn't hold as many.)

I tend to have several Cd's by the same artist.  Therefore, I organized the Cd's in the case by artist or type of CD.  I simply attached sticky tabs to the side of the CD sleeves to separate the Cd's.  Here are some of the organizational tabs for the Cd's (Although, I'm currently in the process of reorganizing since I have a few more Cd's to add!):

1. Greg and Steve
2. Dr. Jean
3. Laurie Berkner
4. Carole Perterson
5. Curriculum Cd's
6. Mother Goose
7. Rest/Nap time 
8. Raffi
9. Hap Palmer
10. Nature Cd's
11. Simple Preschool Cd's
12. Routines and Favorites
13. Books on CD

Now I know many people have put their FAVORITE songs on Mp3 players.  I haven't yet.  Instead, I burned 3 Cd's of routines and favorite songs.  This way, the routine songs we use during the day are quick and easy to find.  Because I burned our first routine songs of the day in order, we can go from #1 (clean-up) to the next few songs in our routine pretty simply.  (I do think at some point I will put all of these on an Mp3 player).

(NOTE:  I HAVE all the Cd's I have burned onto the routines and favorites Cd's.  I have just placed them on several Cd's to make it easier to find!)

I've also created labels for each CD so I know where each belongs (labels are attached to the pocket where the CD belongs).  Although, I certainly won't pretend they actually are put BACK correctly during the day, this does help tremendously as I'm picking up Cd's before I head home! 

At the end of the day,  I simply put all the Cd's back where they belong, song lists are next to the Cd's and everything is in one large CD holder.  This takes up much less space and stays organized much longer than anything else I have tried for Cd's!  

**This post is linked to Rainbows Within Reach Organize your classroom linkie!