How To Measure Your Binders

After my last blog post, I set off on a quest.  It was time to beautify my  classroom binders.  I began with the idea that there were only a few sizes of binders, and that they were all uniform sizes.  I typed up a quick template that was one inch wide for the spine of a one-inch binder.  It didn't fit.  Then I started measuring the spines of the binders in my classroom.

I have half-inch, one-inch, one-and-a-half inch, one-and-three-quarters inch, two-inch, two-and-a-quarter inch, and three inch binders.  This is crazy!  I went to see Rosemary, the Woman-Who-Knows-All and runs our school (Shhh, don't tell the Principal/Superintendent!)  She told me that I was measuring them wrong!  I was measuring the outside spine of each binder.  Here's the video     she directed me to:
             
               
 I had been measuring them the wrong way.  I went back to my classroom to measure them correctly.  Here is what I found:

This is my half inch binder.
It's actually a tiny bit bigger.
A spine that measure half an
inch wide fits this perfectly.

This is a one-inch binder on the
inside.  I have several.  They vary
on the outside spine, however.
Some will fit a spine of one inch,
but others need it to be 7/8 of an inch.

This is a one-and-a-half inch binder.
I have several and they vary from a
spine width of just under 1 1/2 inches
to 1 3/4 inches.

My two-inch binder is closer to 2 1/4
inches.  The spine that fits is best is 2 1/2
inches wide.  I know, right?  Couldn't
this drive a person right over the edge?


So.  Even though I now know how to measure a binder's capacity, I still can't find a set of universal spine sizes.  This is just a teeny bit disconcerting for someone with perfectionistic tendencies.

Tune in next time to see if I figured out what to do.  Because right now, I'm baffled.  And bothered.  There's a word for that: befuddled.