The best thing happened today! A student was having trouble with a particular rhythmic concept and I realized I had a worksheet that would help reinforce at home what we had just been working on at her lesson. Now, a week ago, I would have had to rummage through several folders full of worksheets to find the appropriate one, only to find that I had given out the last one and would have to try to track it down on-line again and print off a new one. Of course, this would have to wait until the following week, since I couldn’t use valuable lesson time to do this, providing that I remembered to do it at all before said student arrived the following week for her lesson. Sound familiar?

Well, no more! Last weekend I decided I absolutely had to figure out a better system for keeping all those great worksheets organized. So, this is what I came up with:

I labeled each binder with a different category: rhythm, note identification, intervals, scales-keys-chords, musical terms and symbols-puzzles and riddles, composers-instruments, listening, general, blank staff paper - nine in all.

I placed master prints of each worksheet in a sheet protector and then placed them in the corresponding binder. Any additional copies of worksheets were 3-hole punched and placed directly following the master sheet.

So, today, I grabbed the “rhythm” binder off the shelf, flipped to the appropriate worksheet, pulled out a copy of it and sent it home with my student. Isn’t organization wonderful?!