It's almost time! I am having a hard time entering any store at this point in the summer. I find myself practically drooling over the back-to-school supplies and office supplies. I. Just. Want. It. All.
Deep breath.
We're starting school next week, so I spent last week getting our work space ready. We moved into this house in November, and I was really, really hoping for a school room. That wasn't in the cards, though, so we are sticking with our kitchen table. It's working out well for us so far. I only wish we had more space to hang things. And to have all of my materials in one place, without it overwhelming our living space. I'm a very visual person, I so I don't like to look at a lot of clutter. With that in mind, I've found ways to "hide" our supplies when we need to.
Here is our table where we do most of our work. Papa just refinished this table. Looks great, doesn't it? I love this table because it is large enough for everyone to be there at once. We can spread out and still all be there together. Sometimes someone will go work in another room, especially when they are reading. Then any comfortable space will do.
This dresser houses most of my supplies. We found this dresser for free a few years ago and gave it some paint. Each drawer hides the things I use every day. Here's a peek into some of them.
The top of the dresser is empty now, but it will hold projects the kids are working on as the year progresses.
These drawers are host to the kids' books. Each child has a set of drawers. Curly has nine because he does the most subjects. Little Bear has six, and Tiny Dancer has three. The drawers are labeled for each subject so they can find their books and clean them up quickly. We used to use the dresser for this purpose, but things were getting lost too easily. Curly would somehow have books lost behind the dresser, under the dresser, and somewhere in a black hole. Since we started using the drawers, I think he's only lost one piece of paper. He's not the most organized child, so this helps him learn how to be organized.
On top of the drawers is a bin to hold the library books that will be used for school. We've got some in there already, and we will add a few more in the next week.
The bookshelf has reference books on the top two shelves. The kids go here for further research into topics. And the bottom two shelves hold their library books that are just for fun reading.
The basement door is another great spot for organizing. The front of the door has pockets for me to store important papers. I can keep papers for after-school activities, lists, home school papers for the district, etc., all at my fingertips. The back of the door holds all of our pencils, crayons, markers, glue, rulers, scissors, and anything related. It's easy for the kids to clean up because everything clearly has its own spot.
We are working on responsibility with Curly this school year. So we've posted a calendar on the fridge. He has his own small agenda book, and he will be responsible for keeping track of when his activities are happening and what he needs to do to prepare for them. The calendar will be color coded per person in the family.
I don't have them quite finished yet, but we also make use of bulletin boards. One has a calendar for Tiny Dancer to learn from; one has space for hanging things we've learned.
Any extra supplies: math manipulatives, books we aren't using this year, files we don't need daily, etc., are located on bookshelves in the basement. It's too much to have it all in our dining room, so I keep the overflow organized down there. I do wish we could have it all together so I could make better use of all that we have, but this works for now. I feel like I have enough space to be organized, and that's what really helps!
And that's about it for our space! Thanks for taking a peek inside our school room today!
