At the very end of the summer (god, doesn’t that seem like forever ago?), Karen from The Success Box contacted me asking if I’d be interested in reviewing a system for organizing visuals and Picture Cards pictures. It was like she had read my mind and knew my innate love of obsessive organizing. Of course, I jumped at the chance. I always feel like I have Picture Cards pictures coming out of my ears so I am always looking for a better system of organization.

Once my beginning of the year chaos settled down… a little bit… I finally got the chance to dig into the Success Box and I’m not going to lie – I had a really great time getting into organizing everything and thinking of all the uses for this compact box of goodness.

The thing that I love the most about the Success Box is that you can individualize it whatever best suits your needs. Which is great because, as we know, all of our classrooms can be so completely different. So our organization needs are probably different too. I already have a system that works well for my class for food/reinforcer Picture Cards pictures so I didn’t want to touch that. However I do not have a system for an overflowing box filled with baggies of thematic visuals, work task specific cards, old behavior visuals, social skills cues etc. I want each set kept together but up until now that system was just a mess of labeled ziploc bags that I had to dig through to find what I wanted:

I know. It’s so unlike me. A litter embarrassing actually. But the amount of random visuals and set of Picture Cards I have gets overwhelming. So I just throw it in this cute box and it’s out of my hair. But the problem is – I often forget what I have in there so I sometimes end up making something I already have. And when I do need to go in there to find something it takes double the amount of time than it should. Ugh.

Enter the Success Box. I even love how cute it is!

This box is like a mini filing cabinet and all of the dividers have a ziploc baggie attached. Super brilliant right? This is what it looks like when you get it. It’s blank so you can organize the tabs and contents however you like.

Each filing divider has a ziploc baggie attached.

The directions suggest using a sample Picture Cards or visual as the label which is super smart because you don’t even need to waste time making labels. Double sided tape is provided, so just throw your sample up there and fill up the contents.

Here is my newly organized visuals and Picture Cards sets:

For now I used this to organize my lunch main dish and side dish Picture Cards, adapted book labels, calendar visuals, old behavior system that I am not using now (but may want to in the future), matching word Picture Cards, and social skill visuals. I left a lot of space open because I know I am going to have  thousand ideas for this once I have it in my head. A few ideas I have been thinking about using it for:

• adapted book pictures
• fluency flashcards (how awesome and perfect would this be – no need to make a set for each kid, just assign which ones they are working on)
• food organized by category
• Words Their Ways Word Sorts
• Picture Cards by category (art supplies, toys, electronics, etc.)

I have too many ideas on ways to use this. I love that you can create whatever type of system you need. The needs of my classroom change year to year so I can easily adapt this to fit the needs of my group. I am all about efficiency and ways to make my busy day easier! This system allows me to quickly find the visual I need, at the moment I need it.

Thanks Sasha for an amazingly detailed review of the Success Box! Happy Organizing! ~Karen