Ugly Duckling to a Beautiful Swan – The Story of How I Turned My Tragic Task Card Storage Into a Beautiful Thing

Do you ever start out with a storage solution that you think is so good that you will never have to touch it again? Me too. Actually this happens to me a lot.  My vision for organization is not always the reality. Oh sure, at the beginning, everything is fine and I’m happy, but then whatever I’m trying to store – in this case, task cards for centers – outgrows the storage container.  Then I start trying to make it work and this happens…..

I knew that I wanted to do a couple of things with this mess:
1. Find a container that was going to make finding what I needed easy.
2. Make returning task cards just as easy and quick.
3. Last more than a hot minute.
4. Be inexpensive.
So with #4 foremost in my mind, I came across these photo boxes at Hobby Lobby that were normally $4, but were 50% off!  So, for $2.00, I could improve that awful mess at the top.  Not only that, the boxes are really cute! See….
Next, I used the dividers that came with the box and traced out my cute, pink ones:
So here’s the before and after….

Before

After

So that is the story of how I turned an ugly duckling task card container into a beautiful soft gray chevron and pink swan.
The end.
P.S. Next up…Math Task Cards…maybe a nice, vibrant neon turquoise…..
~Rissa
This is my ELA Task Card/Centers container.  There’s a Math one that is just as bad. It made it so hard and time consuming to find what I needed. So, this was a priority on my summer to-do list.

Since, I’m the only one taking cards out and putting them away, I wasn’t worried about the durability issue around kids.  It’s the perfect size for task cards too.  It came with these divider cards.

Doable, but not very pretty. So I decided to gussy them up! (Don’t hear that word much do you?) I made a list of all the types of cards that I would need. Then, I typed up each title on pretty neon pink paper like this:   

Of course, I laminated them.  “Anything worth doing, is worth laminating.” says every teacher I know. Added bonus -it makes them sturdier and they can keep my task cards under control.

Last, and most important, I put the task cards in the new box with the cute dividers and……

Wa la! SO much better! It looks full, but it’s not – the cards are laying back. If I need more storage (in the event that I buy more task cards), I’ll just get another photo box. I’m going to put the answer sheets in a file folder in my cabinet, so they too are easy to find and put away.