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Dangerous Wonder
Mar. 11, 2009
School Room Organization
I love to organize things and I strive to find systems that will work not just for me, but also for my kids. If it's hard for them to put things away, then it just won't happen. In the 5 years I have homeschooled, I have discovered a few ways to help keep things in a relatively orderly fashion...umm...just don't come over this second...okay?! 
Here is our workhorse bookcases from IKEA that house most of our history, Bible, Dr. Seuss and other subjects (in magazine holders).
The bottom shelf is holding jumbo magazine holders of our subjects that aren't used everyday or are the next round/level in a subject. I have found these holders on line for a huge amount of money, but have found them at Wal-Mart for around $5.00. I love how they keep all the books together and organized!
Here is our desk for the three kids. It is a hollow-core door varnished and mounted on our wall with roofing braces or something. My hubby made my day with this project! What you can't see is my door desk joined right next to it with my computer and paper-covered desk. When I find the top and have finished making my area "cute" I will be more than happy to share it will you all!
We use the jumbo magazine holders for all the core subjects that we use often (Language Arts, Math, History, Science). I love this system for keeping all our workbooks in an orderly fashion!
Along the desk, you'll find the three-ringed binders sandwiched between the magazine holders. Each child has a folder for History, Language Arts, Geography and Science. We keep all our papers for each child in these and they are working great so far!
The Langauge Arts Notebook is by far the greatest asset of these binders. We have 5 tabbed dividers with pockets for each LA subject (Spelling, Handwriting, Phonics, Grammar and Writing/Composition).
The assignments for the week are in the pocket of the dividers and the finished work gets 3-hole punched and placed behind the divider. It is working so well! Some days the kids want to finish more than one days work and so that has been a perk too! My kids also enjoy seeing how much work they have been accomplishing throughout the year.
Here is my second area of bookcases. The tall white one is primarily for our art supplies/books and our Science books.
- The top shelf has 2 red boxes with phonics games and the other with old magazines to use in art/science projects.
- The next shelf has a cute basket with flash cards, a few manipulatives and other random school things. It also has magazine holders for our construction paper and tin pails that hold our extensive colored pencil collection.
- Third shelf down is our Art library and believe it or not, more colored pencils, different types of coloring utensils and a cup of scissors.
- The fourth shelf is big buckets of pencils, big markers and fine markers and our cute color crayon caddy which you can read about here along with some other organizing ideas.
- The bottom 2 shelves are for our Science books.
The next 2 bookcases are holding most of our Sonlight read alouds, readers and core books we aren't currently using.
I used the bins from one of those frustrating organizing things that you can get most anywhere that houses things at an angle. We go rid of that contraption and are using the bins to hold our readers! It works great!
I was gong crazy trying to keep all our read alouds in order and save shelf space at the same time. This system works great! I just put all the oversized ones on another shelf.
Oversized read alouds with the handy dandy color coding tape from Sonlight.
Well, I don't know about you, but that's enough organizing for today! Hope some of these ideas will help you or spur you on to creative thinking about your stuff and your space!
If this wasn't enough for you, The Heart of the Matter Online is having a Carnival called: 8 Ways to a More Organized Homeschool. This past Friday was the beginning of week one with Organizing your Physical Space. So go check it out!
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Comments
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Mar. 12, 2009 - Untitled Comment
I think you're absolutely right: If it isn't easy to put things away, it doesn't happen [smile].
~Luke