Homeschool Organization

I've been in school-prep mode around here. Choosing curriculum (mostly done), organizing books and supplies, cleaning out closets and bedrooms... It's way easier for me to do a deep cleaning before school starts instead of each spring. I don't feel rushed and if I'm exhausted the next day, we can just relax.




Last week, I focused on school organization. When we designed our house, we knew that our biggest priority was to have as much open space as possible. We pretty much wanted bedrooms, bathrooms and then one huge living space. Because of that,we decided not to add a school room.





 Instead, we have an everything-kinda room. It's our mud room, our laundry room and our school storage space. There is a space for everything but in order to keep it manageable, everything has to stay in its place. It's not fancy shelving or expensive storage, but it keeps our supplies organized and easy to keep clean.

I have two shelving units for homeschool storage.  One for books:

The bookshelf is for any text books or living books that are for family use. And even though each of the girls has a bookshelf in their rooms, I keep most of the books they'll be reading during the school year on the school shelf.  They're less likely to get lost, or so I can hope. 

And s shelf for supplies:

On the supply shelf, I try to keep everything pretty straight forward. The top shelf is for paper (to keep small hands from using all of it), a small bin with extra crayons and glue sticks (we stock up while the sales are good) as well as a bin with all of our flash cards.

The next shelf is for school supplies that everyone can use. Pencils, markers, extra crayons and colored pencils in an easy to reach location. It's also home to our pencil sharpener. These are the supplies the girls use all the time and they know if they take it out, they put it away (most of the time!). The pencil sharpener is attached to the shelf with 'hook and loop' strips so it can't get lost. I'm hoping to avoid the biggest time waster in our homeschool history - unsharpened pencils and a missing sharpener.

The next two shelves hold the girls' bins. They hold each girls' workbooks, notebooks as well as any text books that are just for them to use. The three hole punch and stapler stay within reach for the girls so they can keep their papers organized. I've also stocked up on extra notebooks, while they're on sale.

In their school bins, I try to keep things as color coordinated as possible. Notebooks, binders, rulers, scissors... all in either pink, blue or green. Each day, the girls are responsible for bringing their bins to the dining room table and then returning them to the shelf when we are done for the day.

I also stock each bin with a pencil box, loaded with art supplies that are strictly for school use. Colored pencils, markers, crayons, glue sticks and scissors are kept separate so that I know each girl will have the proper items to complete projects.

I don't have a fancy school room or a custom built shelf but we have just what we need. It's affordable and easy organization that keeps us together so we can get right to learning.  How do you keep your homeschool supplies organized?