I’m a Bright Ideas Press junkie.  I have almost all of their curriculum, and I keep it instead of reselling it because I know I’ll be using all of my The Mystery of History materials at least one more time.

I’m also a book and learning toy junkie. Because of this, I can’t fit it everything on my bookshelves.  You might suggest that I buy more bookshelves, but eventually I will run out of space to put the shelves.  Besides, I’ll only be using these resources once every four years, or six years if I add in All American History.  Most of those years don’t need to be easily accessible.

My solution is the banker’s box or the paper box if you go through as much paper as I do.  It’s more upscale cousin is the plastic file folder box.  All of them serve the same purpose, some are just slightly more durable.

I have five of them, one for each year of The Mystery of History, and the fifth for All American History.  Several items from the last two years of The Mystery of History will overlap with All American History, so I store them with the appropriate year of the The Mystery of History.

I keep the boxes somewhat easily accessible.  Right now they’re stacked in a corner of the loft upstairs.  I do this because when I find a new item in my wanderings, I add it to the appropriate box.

• I find a cool ancient Egypt game, and it goes into the The Mystery of History Vol. I box.
• I see an amazing documentary on World War 2, and it goes into the The Mystery of History Vol. IV box.
• That fun book of Vikings crafts goes into the The Mystery of History Vol. II box.
• My latest thrift store find of a book on Abraham Lincoln goes into the All American History box.

I also store all of the textbooks and printables I used for each book.  This past year while we’ve been studying the The Mystery of History Vol. II, I figured out every page I needed from the Super Supplemental Collection and from the quizzes in the book and printed them out before copying them to be bound.  Rather than figure that whole thing out again, I’m storing them all.  Next time we cover The Mystery of History Vol. II, I will have saved a few hours of work.

As we cover the items, I am putting them back into the box to save for the next time.  This helps me reduce clutter in my home.  I’m not the best housekeeper, so having a bit less to worry about is a tremendous help for me.

I’m also saving the Illuminations schedules because I write notes on them as we go along: ideas that came to me after the fact and projects we didn’t have time for.

The school year is almost over for us here in Texas since most schools end mid-May, and so I’ve got almost everything packed away.  It’s quite a happy sight to see the box all packed up and ready to go for the next homeschool cycle.

Browse The Mystery of History Category in the Store