Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Very practical advice needed

All good suggestions.

I echo the giant zippered binder. For DS, once paper entered the desk or locker, it was gone. The key was to ensure that every piece of paper went into the binder instead, and came home, every day. Like yours, there was no way any paper was going to be properly placed when received in a binder or duo-tang - and teachers often gave them things without holes and little pieces of paper, so the zipper is crucial - just jam it in and zip. Then each night he had to sit down and figure out what each piece was, what work was associated with it, update his to do list, and file what was done. (And yes, all this took place with a heck of a lot of harassment, erm, I mean supervision).

(This binder actually had parts of the cover that could be written on with a special pen and wiped, which was actually useful for taking note of the occasional instruction - something he is very bad at taking note of).

Our particular binder had tabs for each class on one side, and an accordion on the other, We used tabs for filing things that were complete (but still current enough he might want to reference; otherwise we purged). The accordion tabs were one for "To hand in", one for "To do" (and one actually for his laptop). As per SaturnFan, we worked on building the key habit that every time he walked into a class, he would look in the "To hand in" section to see if there was anything there for that class. If he couldn't tell me what he had to do with a specific piece of paper (what, when, how), we'd put a big post-it note with those questions on it, and put it in the hand-in section as a reminder to ask that teacher for clarification the next day.

Whatever method she chooses to try (and she may want to adopt several, adjusting what works and dropping what doesn't)... she needs to buy into it, own it, and be the boss of it... truly feeling like it is her decision of how to best help herself.

So I organize stuff for a living (I'm a project manager), but back when I was a student I was terribly disorganized, scattered, and spacey! Here are some tips that may help you and your DD get through this.

Second, my DD also has a very large school and a locker in an obscure location. Not having time to drop by between each class may be accurate. But it could be that your DD just doesn't have the skills to put together a plan. For example: Go to morning classes with the red binder, visit locker before lunch, and then take the blue binder to afternoon classes. That said, my DD insisted for years that everything must be in one location. If your DD can remember to visit the locker just for her instrument, that will lighten the load considerably. I like the idea of alarms. If phones aren't allowed, maybe a watch or tiny non-connected digital organizer?