A Storage Solution for Homeschool Materials

My sweet not-so-little boy just asked if I would make him lunch. Just as I was about to decline, he threw in the most beautiful words a Mom could ever hear.

“We are going to explore all afternoon and want to have a good lunch with us for when we get hungry.”

And, all the Momma’s said, “Amen!”

So, of course I packed a hearty lunch and a thermos of water and sent those sweet angels out the front door! And in that blessed silence, I realized anew, this is why we homeschool.

Three weeks ago, we started back to school after a longer than usual fall/winter break. I have shared before that we typically pause on regular homeschooling around mid-November and resume the first week or so of January. For us, this schedule works better than taking off for two months in the summer.

This year, as my husband was working out of the country for much of that time, and returned home January 1st, we opted to ease slowly back into our normal rhythm. He had to remain home from work for 10 days and we were beyond thrilled to spend those days with him. Once he returned to his normal work schedule, I took a week for lesson planning and organizing materials. And, we started back to school the following week. The third week of January! (Naturally this entire deployment process has increased my ability to be flexible!)

Somehow during our two-ish month break, our homeschool cabinet exploded from too many books and a significant amount of neglect. (Please tell me this happens at your house, too!) When friends would come over, most papers, books or projects would quickly be shoved into the homeschool cabinet.

It was a mess! And, truthfully the cabinet was not working for us. Too many books and things piled haphazardly into a space much too small. In our last house, we had an entire wall of shelving devoted to homeschooling, books and manipulatives. Everything had a spot and typically made it there by the end of the day (or week…) We also stayed in that one space to do all of our work.

Now, that we opted to downsize and eliminate that fourth bedroom, organizing homeschool materials has been a much bigger challenge. Plus, school now happens at the kitchen table, the island, the couches, in the bedrooms, outside, etc… We needed a much more flexible “school room.”

Enter in the metal (aka durable) cart on wheels (aka movable!) I found the cutest cart to hold all of our “together time” materials. These are the main texts we read for history, geography, literature, or science, art supplies and the art book, English textbook, map, daily checklists, and the Latin books and CD player for the Latin CD. Now, only the books the children use for “independent work” goes on the bottom shelf of the homeschool cabinet. On the top shelf, we still have the nature/field guides, coloring books and a bin of playdough tools.

Of course it was very neat at the time of pictures, since I had just organized the two spaces and we hadn’t begun school yet. We shall see how long the neatness lasts…..

I’d love to hear about your homeschool space! Is it in a separate room or in the kitchen? Do you have a unique organization system, or just one that works?