Homeschool Organization

[Melaine]

Melaine, does your china cabinet have eagle claw feet and lights inside? Made of oak? I swear, those leaded glass panes are identical to one I used to have (and sold when we moved to a house that it wouldn't fit in).

how funny! no claw feet but it does have lights inside and is oak! it belonged to DH's mom so we've had it for awhile.

[BunnyBee]

Mostly Expedits and bunches of Container Store Multipurpose Bins and Shoe Boxes!

No pictures because it's in a shambles at the moment. I'm trying to clean out and my toddler has been "helping."

The Ikea Raskog cart: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30216536/ The top layer holds an enameled utensil caddy on top filled with pencils, pens, tape, glue sticks, rulers, extra erasers, etc. Container of paper clips and pinch clips. Stapler. Hole punch. All the little stuff. Middle is a mess at the moment. There are markers are in small latching bins (Target, from the sewing aisle), tins of nice colored pencils, and it looks like a sock and bunch of play food? Bottom level is a multipurpose bin with my stuff.

Kids each have a multipurpose bin that holds their daily stuff, notebook, book(s) in progress, glossaries that I've bound specific to their level, a pouch with ruler, protractor, pencils, eraser, etc. (and yet they still ask me where their ruler/pencil/eraser is!) Those are supposed to be returned to the top of the main Expedit once they're done for the day.

The Expedit has one cube for current reference materials--dictionary, thesaurus, atlases, science encyclopedia, history encyclopedia, etc. Another cube has 2 multipurpose bins with paperbacks they can choose for independent reading (free reading at night or whenever, they can read anything they want). Curricula is sorted in the multipurpose bins. Two lidded, hanging file folder boxes--one holds stuff that's been printed to be used and their work I'm saving, and one holds every kind of paper they could possibly use, but in smaller quantities so the whole pack doesn't get crumpled. Graph paper, colorful lined paper, handwriting paper, plain paper, construction paper... Lid is to keep out cat fluff and theoretically the toddler, but she's wily. Math manipulatives, cards, and games are in shoe boxes, either the men's or regular, whichever fits best. We have a few of the ones smaller than shoe boxes, but I can't remember what those are called.

Library books have special homes to cut down on my late fines. Three multipurpose bins on top of the Expedit with big, laminated labels (that they largely ignore): one holds current history books, one has current geography books, one for very-near-future books, and the return bag is kept in the mudroom.

Two large bookcases hold some overflow books and regular household books. Most "kid" books are in the playroom shelves or in their bedroom shelves.

[AustenFan]

I found a picture that I took last summer before we started our school year. Things have migrated some over the school year, but this gives you the general idea. I repurposed a hutch that I got on craigslist to hold most of our school stuff. I have plastic bins for each kid that hold most of their main school books. Separate bins for general art supplies, math manipulatives, and coloring books. Those all go on the shelves below. The glass doors don't hide the mess (I'd ideally want solid doors for that reason!), but they do keep the baby out of the bins.

I store my cookbooks on top, but I will probably have to find another place for them once I add another kid into the mix. On top, I also have old wipes containers for pencils, markers, and crayons. Incomplete art projects or schoolwork usually gets stacked on top until dealt with or forgotten. It only looks as neat as the picture when we're going to have company over! The drawers hold more scratch paper and some of our computer stuff (though I'd love to be able to move that somewhere else and let the kids have the whole space for their creations so that ideally the top wouldn't be a messy stack of papers. But realistically, the mess would just multiply.). We have five tall and two short ikea billy shelves full of books scattered throughout the house, and I keep curriculum I'm not currently using in my bedroom closet. We are a family of readers, so I don't do a formal reading session during schooltime or keep reading books with the math/language/workbooks in their bins--my son has about half a dozen books going all over the house, and I just consider it part of our "nerd decor"... Oh, and I'm trying to keep library books separate because I've paid too stinking many fines on books that got lost in amongst our own.


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