Every year, I face the monster that lives down at the end of the hall. It looks like this:
I know what you are thinking… Not.That.Scary…
Actually, it is! It feels rather vulnerable to open my messy closet doors for you, but here goes… Take a peek inside:
Meet the school closet. With school just 3 weeks away, it was time to tackle this monster of a mess! While I do straighten it out every year, I don’t really clean it or purge unnecessary supplies from it. Until now…
With two kids graduated and four others needing some space for new school supplies and books, it was time to really dig in and get my hands dirty on this project. I didn’t realize I would also have a tear-stained face by the time I was through. Read on to find out how you too can get your school supplies and curricula organized expertly while still retaining your precious memories…
5 Steps to School Organization
I had 15 years worth of artwork, handwriting worksheets, lapbooks and research papers buried in this closet. No, I didn’t keep everything. We do find great joy throwing out finished math books and most other workbooks, but some things are just so precious, like the postcards that my kids wrote to me while going through Ann Voskamp’s first volume of A Child’s Geography. One reads like this…
“Dear Mom, I really love you. Did you know that? You are the best teacher ever and I love you alot. By the way, did you know that the earth weighs about the same as 3 million elephants. I thought you might want to know that.”
I’m not sure if she got her facts right on this one or not and I didn’t look it up to find out. All I know is that this sweet little “postcard to home” is a keeper.
Or the paper that I found written by my high school daughter about her Nana, the legacy that she is leaving for our family, the servant’s heart that she has and the treasure that she has always been to her. Um, yeah, this is a keeper too. Not to be morbid, but this is the kind of stuff one saves and reads for a memorial service. My eyes were wet and I had just begun…
Cleaning out this closet was going to be a tough assignment for this homeschool mom. But I rolled up my sleeves and conquered it. Here’s how…
1. First things first – clear it out! I didn’t have room to clear out all of the shelves at the same time (it was just so much stuff!), so I tackled it two shelves at a time. I piled everything on the dining room table and then wiped down the shelves.
2. Get rid of it! If you don’t need it anymore either a) throw it away; b) give it away; or c) sell it. Set out a small(ish) box to toss sentimental stuff into. If you find yourself wanting to keep everything, rather than just a sampling, then take photos of projects, papers and notes and file them digitally in Evernote for easy retrieval. I find that I feel better if I keep some things, but just a tiny fraction of everything.
I collected 3 huge bags and 2 boxes full of garbage (schoolwork, scribblings, used workbooks, broken pencils, games with pieces missing, etc.)
3. Put it away! If an item doesn’t belong with your school supplies, put it where it belongs. ‘Nuf said!
4. Organize it! I organize my school books and supplies in a couple different ways. I have four school boxes – one for each child in school. My two graduates were somewhat heart-broken to give up their boxes, but hey! I needed them for other purposes. Time to move on! Into these school boxes goes their school books and workbooks, fresh blank notebooks, brand new pencils, erasers, etc. If a book is shared, it goes on the shelf but not in an individual box. It looks like this:
We use transparent plastic school boxes like these because they can sit on the shelf neatly and keep books from going everywhere. Or the lids can be snapped on (see them sitting behind the open boxes?) and the entire box can be taken on the go if necessary. The kids also have backpacks which they usually prefer to use for mobile homeschooling.
The top two shelves of the closet contain curricula that I want to keep but am not using this year. These books go on the tip-top shelf, out of reach of nearly everyone. The shelf below that one, which most of the kids can reach, is where all of the extra supplies are stored. I have reams of lined and unlined paper, 3×5 cards, boxes of pencils and packs of pens, several different styles of notebooks and about a dozen binders of various sizes.
The bottom two shelves contain mostly art and science supplies.
5. Put it all back and tell everyone not to mess it up!
Yes, it is a simple process but it takes guts and determination. If I can tackle 15 years worth of memories and junk, so can you. Let’s just see that transformation one more time.
Before:
After:
Ah, now that feels good!
Question: Have you organized your space for school yet?
This entry was posted on Monday, August 19th, 2013 at 6:32 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
