We don’t have room to have our very own homeschool classroom. Instead, the kitchen table is our primary area where we do school, in addition to the living room, the screened in porch, etc.
We knew even before we started homeschooling that we would need to have an area in our home to keep all of our things from taking over the house. To do this, we decided to give up our coat closet, and we turned it into our “homeschool closet.”
My husband pulled out the hardware that was in the closet, and put in shelving instead. And, I happily filled it up. I pretended that if I threw things in baskets then it was organized. I’m here to tell you, my friends, it started looking horrible.
I don’t think the pictures really do it justice for how messy it was, since you can’t see in the baskets. But, you could only see whatever was at the top of each basket. It was a horrible pain to try to get construction paper, unless you wanted the top color. There were boxes of flash cards and materials tossed in every little corner.
Before
To clean up our closet, I took everything out. I made a stack of some things to try to sell. It’s pretty sad that only one quarter into homeschooling, there are already things that we know we won’t ever use.
Then, I took out some of the biggest baskets, and put in smaller baskets instead. I also then broke up the baskets into themes, instead of just shoving things in anywhere they would go.
Oh…and I also had a lot of help from my husband, because he did another little project for me that helped me to remove many things from our closet and put them in a handier place. (Scroll farther down to see that before/after project.)
Closet After:
Okay, now on to our next project…
See that tiny bit of bookshelf (in the picture below)? I didn’t know that I needed to take a before picture, because I didn’t know about the wonderful project that was about to happen. But, check out how I had to store our materials — all horizontally.
I had two shelves of this three shelf bookshelf for our homeschool materials. The bottom was just full of junk. None of the shelves were tall enough for any of our schooling books.
But then check out what happened after I said, “Eric — I really wish I could put these books upright, instead of laying them all down. It makes such a mess and it’s hard to grab what I need.”
Yep, he got out a drill and did some measurements to give me two larger shelves for our books (and the kids’ school boxes, which they used to have to go to the closet to get). He also gave me one small shelf, which is a super perfect spot for my lesson plan book and some of my other administrative types of things. (Plus, I do have some magazines and the like on the top of the bookshelf, since it is actually pushed under our kitchen counter.)
I’m thrilled! It was so much easier to use during school on Monday! I just wish I had said something sooner!
After:
So…what do you do to keep (or at least try to keep) your homeschool, or just your home in general, organized? Just leave us a comment with a tip or idea, and you’ll be entered into a drawing for the book Organizing Your Home and Family by Sandra Felton.
(Drawing will be held on Thursday, September 18th at 11:59 pm EST.)
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When Angie isn’t busy marveling at how much easier homeschooling is when you are organized, she can be found blogging at Many Little Blessings
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
My house isn’t very organized, but I find that FlyLady has a lot of good ideas that I use from time to time.
Great post!
I’m not very good at organization. Some days, I feel lucky to come away with a house that’s intact. My daughter, who is almost three, is like a human tornado!!
For my tackle, I made elderberry jelly, my first jelly-making experience. You should come see, and scroll down my front page to enter my super-cute Etsy giveaway! :)
Great job of organizing!!!
Nice tackle! Looks great. I take those little plastic drawers (you know the ones that are clear and have like 3 or 4 drawers in them) and I use them in the play room. I put all the blocks, puzzles, little people and anything small in those organized drawers. They are small and light so they are easy for the kids to access!
Robyn :)
The closet and bookshelf look great!
I have a Kindergartener and a toddler, so I don’t have as much school stuff, but we do live in a 2 bedroom (1300 sq ft) house. Our kitchen is rather large, so I use two of the upper cabinets for craft stuff and games. I just went through it recently, and got rid of all the coloring books that were 99% full, got rid of broken tiny crayon bits, and seperated out a box of crayons, markers, pencils, scissors and glue for our big girl.
I also use two bookshelves by my desk for homeschool stuff. One for all her curriculum (we use Seton Home Study) and one for a bunch of suggested books.
My tip is this: For each day that you homeschool per week (per kid) have a file folder (mine are labeled Day 1, 2, 3 and 4) When planning for the week, I remove the worksheets from dd’s curriculum books (phonics, handwriting, math) and place them in order in the folder. Each day I can get out the folder rather than having a stack of those books with removable worksheet pages and tearing out the assignment each day. I keep these along with the books we don’t tear pages out of on top of our bookshelves during the week…much neater than a towering stack of books.
WOW! Great job on the closet. ;-)
We are blessed that we do have a school room. The kitchen table stopped working for us, so we turned our front room into the school room. I have a large bookshelf and a filing cabinet to store things. I also have two of those magazine holders. One houses my teacher guides, and the other houses the student workbooks.
I do FlyLady, so that helps me stay on top of things, but every six months I go through our books/supplies. If it didn’t work for us, or we are finished with it I pull it off of the shelf and immediately post it for sale, or put it on freecycle. If it isn’t gone in 3 days I give it to our local Crisis Center. I HAD to go to this system, because I became very overwhelmed, very quickly.
I learned early on that just because I have a whole room to house my things doesn’t mean it will stay more organized, it just means I have a larger “closet” to keep organized. ;-)
What a great tackle! I am in awe of those who homeschool! Patience is not my forte:-)
What an awesome tackle – lucky you to have a handy husband.
I find that the hardest thing to organize in an easy way is books. We have so many and they keep multiplying, we have tried bookshelves, containers, and baskets. I have them spread out throughout the house in pretty much every room, but still have a hard time keeping them arranged in a neat way.
Wow! Great tackles! Don’t you just love having a handy husband. Oh, and those baskets….love them!!! We have tons of them and use them for school and toy storage, as well as laundry baskets for clean/folded/ready to be put away laundry for the kids.
I’ve found that if you put things back where they belong — right when you’re done with them instead of a day or two or weeks later — then the house tends to stay much more organized. (Of course, I’m the only person in the house who uses this organizational technique….)
I swear by my label maker to help with organization. I find that if things are labeled I want to be able to keep things organized more than if they didn’t have the labels. It was the best $20 I have ever spent :)
Those white and gray bins are what I use! Love them! They come in all different shapes and sizes, too. Good for drawers, closets, under the sinks! That’s what I do (and so do you!) :)
Great tackle! Check my tackle out – Christmas! Eek!
Great job!!! Everything looks fantastic!
I like your book shelf.
One idea that I have for colored paper is using a portable plastic filing box. I use hanging folder that match the color of paper if I can & put them in the folder. The box is taken out & put back with ease.
Organizing doesn’t come naturally for me. I have worked hard to get my home organized, but it is difficult to keep it that way. In addition to my regular cleaning and daily pick up, I am picking one picking one area a week to focus on. It may be a closet or a shelf, and I am reorganizing it. This helps me keep the things I have organized still looking good.
We have a couple of bookshelves, but I have found, for me, that the key is less stuff. It’s hard for me to let things go, but it makes life so much easier. I found bookmooch.com where I can get rid of books and then get some that I want.
The other key this week has been “routine”. If my children forget to clear their plates, then I need to help them develop the routine of clearing their plates. If they leave the bathroom a mess, then I need to help them develop the routine of picking up dirty clothes and hanging up towels as soon as they are done with a bath.
I’m also using the concept of devoting 15 minutes per day to picking up around the house. It has helped tremendously already.