I’m working on ordering our school books and gathering new supplies for the upcoming school year. I really enjoy this! Something about a fresh start is always nice! In this post, I’m showing how we organize all the supplies we use in our home without having a dedicated homeschool room.
This year will be our third year at our hybrid model school where they attend school twice a week and we do work at home the other days . John Lloyd will go to Kindergarten this year and join his two oldest brothers. I can hardly believe it!
Long before we had a thought of doing school this way, we bought a cabinet from a local antique shop to help balance out a long wall in our living room. This cabinet now is the cornerstone of all the school materials that we use daily. This is what works for us now. And I’m sure we’ll be adjusting as they get older and the other boys also have school items to store.
I’ve read so much about homeschool rooms and seen so many wonderful pictures of neatly organized rooms set aside just for school. While those all look wonderful, we simply do not have space in our current home for a whole room dedicated just for school. And I’ve seen from our current situation that you don’t have to have that to make school at home work. A cabinet, bookshelf, corner of a room, rolling cart, etc can make great places to keep your things neat and out of the way. I’m a big fan of using cabinets and closets and repurposing items to make the most use of organizing clutter.
This is our cabinet. I’ll show you how we put each shelf to use:
FIRST SHELF:
This shelf is mainly for school books. Things go in and out of that first shelf all day long. And the boys’ backpacks get packed right out of this spot and ready for the days they go to school. Then they unload them back here when they get back from school so we’re ready for our home days the following morning.
We keep Thomas’s things to the left side and Arthur’s to the right. Between them I keep a basket for flashcards, math manipulatives, etc so they’re right there easy to grab. To the far right I have a container that has hanging folders for each of the boys and one for myself where I keep work that’s been sent home from school that we need to keep and other important papers through the year. This particular one is the Sterilite brand from Walmart. I love the Sterilite ones for so many uses around our home.
SECOND SHELF:
The second shelf is mostly for supplies. To the far left are coloring books, stickers, and such for John Lloyd. On the paper tray we have clipboards, notebook paper, card stock, printer paper, and construction paper.
To the far right are some repurposed containers for colored pencils, crayons, and paint brushes. There are three other Sterilite containers that stack on top of each other for markers, paint, and one for odds and ends like rulers, dry erase markers, oil pastels, and such.
My very favorite thing is this wooden carrier I actually found in the kitchen section at HomeGoods. This has been the handiest thing! It fits perfectly on the narrow space of the shelf. I wanted something with a handle that held the essentials that could be moved around easily.
This gets moved around all through the day. It holds, pencils, crayons, scissors, glue sticks, notecards, pens, highlighters, all the staple supplies.
THIRD & FOURTH SHELVES:
The third shelf mainly holds all of our games. The very top shelf holds some home binders and craft supplies including Play Dough. I like to keep those out of reach of the little hands!
THE BOTTOM:
The very bottom of the cabinet holds puzzles and trains. Although it’s become clear recently that we may need to move the puzzles out of Isaac’s reach!
Over the next weeks, we’ll be reorganizing to put in new books for the coming year, storing away ones that aren’t currently in use, and restocking essential items.
I’d love to know any tips for organizing you have for keeping school materials organized!
Photos by Allison Muirhead
