Organizing Our Homeschool Room

Even though I started homeschool this year with our 2, now 3 year old, I have the benefit of doing this before with the older kids. I already know what I need now and what I will be needing in the future (like books and manipulatives). I am organizing the homeschool room now so everything from learning the ABC’s to American History has a place. That way, everything I currently own that I saved from the older kids can have a home.  If I didn’t like it the first time around, it is either long gone or in a box waiting for the next homeschool sale.

For those who’ve read my posts before, we originally planned to homeschool in the play room.  As I started moving into my office, I realized that having Ava Grey in here would be easier.  This setup allows me to work some while she is coloring, painting, playing with homemade playdough, or making one of her many birthday cards. It also allows me to be upstairs more during the school day.  The older children now do the bulk of their school work in their rooms and I don’t feel so distant from them up here. 

When we first moved here, this room was the holding area for anything that had yet to be unpacked as well as much of the homeschool stuff, all of my business stuff, pictures, scrapbooks, gifts, etc.  I did purchase 2 $15 metal shelves from IKEA for each side of the inside of the closet.  They are still not organized but rather stuffed with photos, scrapbook stuff, and books.

Then I got this room all cleaned up (and I can’t believe I don’t have a picture of that!!!) but it would not hold that much so I headed to IKEA and bought 4 bookshelves ($25 each).  The previous owner left a desk that fit perfectly between two shelves.  I bought two extra $5 shelves to go above the desk (you’ll see what I’m talking about in a bit).

I could now hold much more in here but those many, many, many items needed to be organized.  I bought 10 photo boxes over the break (and received a couple for Christmas – thanks Mom) and labeled them and filled them up.  Using magazine holders from IKEA ($2 for a 5-pack), I organized many workbooks and other resources.

I still need to organize so much more - that is on this week’s agenda.  To help motivate me to finish, I am posting pictures of what this room looks like today. (I started this post two or three days ago).

The room’s transformed a few times since this summer but here is what I started with this week.  I can’t believe I’m showing any of these!

The closet is also a mess!

Once I finish in here, again hopefully this week, the plan is to have the following items organized in here so that if I need something, there will be minimal stress involved locating/reaching said item.

• All scrapbook items and photos that are not in a family album.
• Gifts – I need a clear way to store gifts so I can buy/make ahead and safely store the items until the holiday.
• All homeschool resources we own and all picture books.
• All messy toys like playdough, paint, and sand art.  Ava has a high chair and mat in here to protect the floor and keep her contained during messy, indoor activities.
• All items related to Suburban Tree Hugger and my other adventures.
• All personal reading material and magazines.
• My laptop, external hard drive, webcam, ext.
• The family printer and all paper and ink materials.
• Rechargeable battery chargers.
• Recipes.
• Fabric, my serger, and my soon to own new sewing machine.

Now, I can tell you that this room already looks WAY better than the pictures I took earlier this week.  I worked in her for hours today and found some pretty creative ways to utilize some of the space in the closet.  I hope to have the final pictures up later this week!