SRN's Love It & List It Linky: Organization!

Speech Room News is hosting her Love It & List It linky on Organization this month, so I though I'd share with you how I organize my materials too.

I know many of you following these blogs are school SLPs but I thought for those of you who are hoping to moonlight with your own caseload or those that are hoping to open your own private practice one day, I'd share with you how I do things in my practice.  First thing to keep in mind when looking at these pictures is that I provide home-based therapy which means I have no awesome speech office to store my materials.  Therefore, all of my speech goodies are in one tiny closet (that happens to be smaller than my bathroom)!  Yikes!  So I try very hard to keep myself and my materials organized.  So here goes nothing... 

This is what you see immediately to the right when you open the door to my "speech closet"!  I have this brown bookshelf that holds all parent resource books, educational textbooks, journals, CEU coursework and school-age and adult therapy materials.  Oh and do you spot my laminator?  I have yet to find the perfect place for it so there it remains for now.

Here is an example of my seasonal therapy materials.  Nothing confidential in this picture!

Next to my brown book shelf are my locking file cabinets, where I hold my client files (hence the locks!), assessments, themed lessons, TpT products and seasonal lessons.  I only lock my client files and assessments (just in case!).

Next to my file cabinets is a utility shelf my husband found on sale at Home Depot.  Because the room is so small he had to put it together inside my speech closet! As you can see it holds many of my wonderful therapy materials.

The top 4 shelves hold mostly games and speech therapy materials!  Yes you are correct if you think they are piled up to the ceiling!  That is about 12 years of therapy purchases and collection...it's a masterpiece if you ask me!!!

The bottom shelf holds plastic totes full of my craft materials and materials for specific holidays.  Yes my labels are ugly...I KNOW!  My next project is to create cute labels for these totes.  We shall see how long that takes. :)

On the back wall of this room, you can see I used a multicolored bucket shelf (bought from consignment!) for toys and materials I need more readily.  I have my band in a box, some sensory toys, my bowling set, my baby dolls, puppets, cars and homemade and purchased language based card decks and bingo games.

By the way, in the frame above my coat hooks is my business license!  So proud of that piece of paper!!!

On the left wall is a built in shelf (GLORIOUS!) that was here when we moved in.  Top shelf, I have some fun toys: farm, Mr. Potato Head, jungle animals, duplo blocks, etc.  The second and third shelves are filled with more art supplies as you can see below.  

I really need to make these labels cuter!

The next two shelves are full of book that I love the use in therapy.  Don't worry they aren't all of my books...I have a whole other bookshelf in my son's closet!! Hahahaha! The bottom shelf, are my puzzles, and other manipulatives   Below that are two more large totes full of miscellaneous materials that would fit no where else.  I know it looks awful but I will eventually find a better way to organize it!

On the back of my closet door, hangs my articulation cards.  I don't know who first thought of this idea, but I believe the first person I saw share this idea was Jenna at SRN but don't quote me on that.

And finally, that last thing I want to share with you is how I organize my picture symbols.  I organize them by category and they are placed in a hardware organizer I bought (also on sale) at Home Depot!

So that's it!  That's my home "speech closet"!  I know it's a bit stressful for some of you to look at, but I like knowing where everything is.  And do you know what is the best part about my closet?  I can just close the door!!!

Happy Talking and Organizing!!!!