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Organizing Our Homeschool Space

It is January, and usually this mean organizing time for many. I love organizing. I am not necessarily the most organized or neat person, but nonetheless I like to organize stuff. Way back when  I came across this logo and it stayed with me: " A place for everything." Living by this rule is really life saving. Keeping items organized in your homeschool and home is an important aspect of your homeschool day. It does help you from being frazzled and wasting time looking for things.


This month I am joining the Canadian BloggingTeam in talking about our organizing Tips.

This month, I also participated in the Organization Your Homeschool in 20ish Days Challenge sponsored by The Canadian Homeschooler and DownshipPRO.com

In this post I will be sharing with you how things are organized in our homeschool.

Books and curriculum:

We live in an apartment so space is limited in my house. I use bookcases and crates to store our books and homeschool material. I do not buy and store curriculum in advance, and I only buy things that I know I will use. Also once I am done with something I look to sell it as soon as possible so that i have money to buy the next thing (we live on one income and there is not much money to go around). So our curriculum stash is not very large. Here is how all of our material and resources are organized:

  • One bookshelf spot has all our resource books
  • One spot has all our library items
  • Another bookshelf spot has our curriculum, flashcards and such.
  • Each boy has his own crate which contains their current curriculum and notebooks.
  • All our manipulative, science stuff included, are also kept on a shelf or two in one of our bookcases.

Supplies:

When it comes to supplies, again I try to be minimalist, so we do not have tons of stuff. Our supplies consist of: pens, pencils, erasers, scissors, markers, colored pencils, highlighters, dry-erase markers, permanent markers, glue, paint, stickers, labels, paper, transparent sheets, manila folders, thumbtacks, hole puncher, staplers and staplers, paper clips, andpost-it. All of these are kept in containers of various size and shapes

Mom's corner:

When it comes to my stuff, I keep my supplies around my computer desk. A lot of the stuff I share with the boys so they are kept in a different spot. My teacher's books, of which I do not have many of, are kept in the curriculum spot mentioned earlier. I also have a binder that contains my lesson planner pages, blogger planner pages and finance sheets as well.

Toys/games/Lego:

When it comes to toys, I give them the same treatment as curriculum: if they are not being used, they get sold. So every so often I go through with the boys and sort. Most of the toys and games are kept in bins.

We recently acquired a bookcase to store their Lego pieces, and display their creations. I totally forgot to take a before picture and really wish I had, because man there has been a major change in space and tidiness.  Most of their Lego pieces are in mix and match boxes and stored on the shelves neatly. I also used that same bookcase to store our board games.

My tips:

  1. Only buy if you know you need it and/or you know you're going to use it.
  2. Every year assess and purge your stuff, from supplies to curriculum to books.
  3. Train your children to put away at the end of the school day.


Labels:

Comments

Annette said…
That was a tough one to learn. Buy only if you really think you will use it.

http://anetintimeschooling.weebly.com/a-net-in-time-blog
January 29, 2016 at 8:13 AM
Unknown said…
We are apartment dwellers too. I purge often, and I try to stick buying what will be used. I do buy some items in advance if I find a good deal. Thanks for sharing your tips and space.
January 30, 2016 at 3:41 PM
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