Sunday, August 30, 2009

Where to keep all the stuff?!

School supplies... My friends lament the massive lists provided each August telling them what their children must bring the first day of school. Pens, pencils, crayons, dry erase markers, binders, paper, pencil boxes, etc... A lengthy list of necessities for the coming school year.
We homeschoolers get no such list. Even better, we make our own! However, we don't ship off all the fabulous materials. We get to keep them all at home! And my list is long! With our implementation of workboxes (see this post), I now have more supplies to organize. Pens & pencils had a home. Notebooks & paper sat neatly on the shelf. I stacked tidy little boxes of crayons & markers. But now?! Now, our supplemental activities join the inventory of items needing to be easily accessible. Hmmmm... tucked into bins and boxes, stored in the laundry room and garage, doesn't count as "easily accessible"?! What's a mom to do?
Get rid of clothes, that's what! (Breathe easy. I didn't get rid of all of them!) I'm not much for lots of clothes anyhow. Obviously as I designed my "walk-in" closet as more of a "reach-in" closet. Now, it has a new job. It houses all my essential school supplies in an orderly fashion on the MAIN floor! The bonus: you can walk through my dining room/ living room without fear of bins toppling and burying small children!
The result:
Those bins are organized by subject rather than grade level, thereby making it easier for me to fill our workboxes. I can easily find an activity for both Kjersten and Brennen to do together for handwriting or a game that Rhys can teach Kjersten without having to search through too many bins.