How do you store all your hs supplies & curriculum? Getting overwhelmed...

[Happy2BaMom]

We just starting hsing ds, 7, as of January 1 and yet already I"m starting to feel overwhelmed with all the books, papers, curriculum, folders, etc. - and I'm usually the one who finds it easy to organize! We have years and another child ahead of us for hsing - how do other people handle this?!

 

Do you just keep adding bookshelves?

Do you use supply cabinets?

How do you store the tidbits - art supplies, manipulatives, geometric shapes, etc?

Do you use three-ring binders or hanging file folders for completed years?

 

I'm pretty good at discarding things we don't need to keep, but there still is a lot of material that builds up quickly!

 

If this has been discussed in another thread, please let me know...I did try to search but didn't have much luck.

 

Thanks!

 

Janet

[RainbowSprinkles]

:lurk5::bigear:

[SilverMoon]

Do you just keep adding bookshelves? That is my current plan. :tongue_smilie:

Do you use supply cabinets? No.

How do you store the tidbits - art supplies, manipulatives, geometric shapes, etc? Good paints and misc. art supplies live in plastic box, which lives at the bottom of the pantry. Spare stuff I find around the house that they'd enjoy gets added to the box (cardboard, odd buttons, and such). The drawer in the kitchen that's closest to the dining room is also full of kid pencils, colored pencils, crayons, the cheap crayola paint, scissors, and other frequent use stuff. School only manipulatives live in their container on my desk somewhere (big corner desk) until they're no longer needed on a regular basis. Then they're demoted to the game/puzzle area of the house. The games/puzzles occupy a smallish bookshelf that sits between the kids' bedroom doors, and they've overtaken about half of my linen closet.

Do you use three-ring binders or hanging file folders for completed years? We use binders, pretty much as described in TWTM. Everything is 3-hole punched and put in a binder. If it can't be 3-hole punched it can have a digital picture taken of it, printed, and THAT can be 3-hole punched and put in the binder. At the beginning of the new school year the old binders go live on the top shelf in the linen closet. Finished workbooks that didn't have pages removed just go to the "old binders" shelf when they're completed. I think that shelf may give way if I add all of this year's load to it though. :001_huh: Hopefully the kids won't mind all the previous years being put in a big Rubbermaid and relocated to the garage rafters.

 

SWB wasn't kidding when she suggested big binders. They may seem like overkill at first, but they'll be stuffed before the school year runs out. :lol:

[Closeacademy]

I have four bookshelves in my basement where I keep all of our books and curriculum that we are not using. There is 1-2 bookshelves for each subject and a special bookshelf for children's books.

 

For children's books, my rule is: I do not keep what the library has. There is no sense in duplicating and taking up my space with things we can just check out from the library.

 

For curriculum, I've found what works for us and only have on the shelf what is waiting for my younger child and next year's curriculum for my older child. I keep it organized by level.

 

I have 1 supply cabinet where we keep art supplies and board games. the art/craft supplies are all in plastic baggies so that things are easy to find. I also use plastic tubs which I stack up to keep art/craft supplies and manipulatives. These are also in my basement.

 

For smaller manipulatives, I use pencil boxes. You can often pick them up for a quarter or less at garage sales or buy them at Walmart for $1 during the school sale. I keep these on top of a bookshelf when we are not using them.

 

Paper, notebooks and folders that are not in use we keep in a file cabinet drawer.

 

We use 3-ring binders for our completed lapbooks and notebooks and I keep them on a shelf so that the children can look at them whenever they want. Completed workbooks and records are kept in a file cabinet.

 

For our day to day stuff, each child has a 6 drawer rolling cart that has their work in it and I have a small bookshelf with supplies and resources in my living room. We have a combined living/dining room and do schoolwork in there.

 

Hope this helps.:001_smile:

[johnandtinagilbert]

I have a closet that is organized via topic, so there is a math/sci/history/language arts/foreign lang/electives shelf. I actually store some things I have already lesson planned in black file boxes, label them and stick them on the right shelf.

 

For craft supplies, I have a stand alone closet. Everything is in a container. I use carrot stick boxes from Costco, baskets, tupperware (anything I found or inherited inexpensively) and label them. Then I put an abc ordered list on the door, with a "shelf number" on the list, so the dc can find anything and also so the can put it back correctly (which still doesn't happen often enough)!

 

Everything we use daily is in our own cubbies. Each child has a cubby, I have one too. Finally, I have a small 3-tier rack that holds their 3-drawer paper box, and red pencil boxes (10 cents on clearance :) ) with daily supplies like pencils, scissors, glue, crayons, map pencils, etc.

[ChicoryChick]

In a word - filing cabinets. My husband has been able to get us a couple of four drawer filing cabinets and they are perfect for storing art supplies, TM etc. We also have lots of book shelves. :D

[HSMom2One]

For our day to day stuff, each child has a 6 drawer rolling cart that has their work in it and I have a small bookshelf with supplies and resources in my living room. We have a combined living/dining room and do schoolwork in there.

 

Christy, what type of rolling cart do you use for your children? Do you have a picture? Where did you buy them?

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

[HSMom2One]

I would LOVE to have a library cart! I've looked around, though, and they are pretty expensive. Wish I could find something that is reasonably priced. We're setting up a school area in my art studio and a rolling cart would be perfect.

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

[Paisley Hedgehog]

..

[Chris in VA]

One filing cabinet, halfway full, two bookshelves, one art shelf, various things strewn around the house that I swear I'll attend to some day, several piles,...

 

I do have a schoolroom, tho we don't use it all the time. You can see a pic on my poor, neglected blog if you look under 2009. It shows some of the storage we use.

 

If you are just starting out, have you perhaps bought too much? :D

[HSMom2One]

One filing cabinet, halfway full, two bookshelves, one art shelf, various things strewn around the house that I swear I'll attend to some day, several piles,...

 

I do have a schoolroom, tho we don't use it all the time. You can see a pic on my poor, neglected blog if you look under 2009. It shows some of the storage we use.

 

If you are just starting out, have you perhaps bought too much? :D

 

Hey Chris - I love your school room! Since I had not seen the pics before I wandered over to your "poor, neglected blog". It's great that you actually have a school room feel to it.

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

[texasmama]

Do you just keep adding bookshelves? I have one 8 foot bookshelf which holds the majority of our books, curriculum and suppplies. I use small plastic bins for the smaller supplies and put them on the shelf. (pencils, erasers, markers, staples, etc.) I added a three foot bookshelf recently to hold games, chapter books and the upcoming kindy student's curriculum. I also have a cheapie three drawer plastic cabinet which holds kid supplies for art - construction paper, scissors, glue sticks, etc.

How do you store the tidbits - art supplies, manipulatives, geometric shapes, etc? Small plastic bins (the ones which are 15-18 inches by 8 inches or so...guessing at the size...) I leave off the lids. This works well. I have three of these with various stuff in them.

Do you use three-ring binders or hanging file folders for completed years? Three ring binders for each child until they get full and then I move to another one.

[KJsMom]

This is a touchy subject! So right now I have a seperate schoolroom outside of the house. It is wonderful and completely unworkable for us. It is a cute storage space for our books and supplies that we don't use on a daily basis. We actually work in the house and have a bookshelf with the things we use every day. We are in the process of closing in our garage to make a master bedroom and the little room we are in now will be the school room in the house. The room has a large closet that I plan to build in shelves and cubbies. I have 2 large bookshelfs and cabinets in the outside room that I plan to move in as well.

[Wheres Toto]

We have an extremely small house, no closets and a 2 year old who gets into everything so we've had to be creative.

 

In the kids bedroom, we have 3 large storage cabinets - 2 are for toys (we rotate what they have out) and 1 is for all our craft supplies - paper, paints, foam stickers, seasonal crafts, etc. They are kept locked. On top of the craft cabinet is a large basket with all our recyclable items to use in crafts - paper towel holders, shoe boxes, etc.

 

In our living room, we have two bookcases that have doors over the lower shelves. On one case is games on the very top shelf, books on the second shelf down and nothing on the lowest (its within reach). Behind the doors are my paper cutters, laminator and all the supplies I use when making games. On the other is decorative items on top, books on the second and nothing on the bottom. Behind the doors are Vicki's new Tot Trays. The lower doors on both are kept locked except when Vicki is using her trays during school. The books on these shelves are only our school books. Regular reading books are in the kid's room and all my books are in bins in the garage. :-(

 

On a (very) high shelf over some doors in the living room is a bin with all our math/science manipulatives, magazine holders with coloring books and magazines, and all our extra crayons and markers.

 

In the dining room (we have a gate to keep the dog in the kitchen/dining area so the kids aren't in there usually) we have a 9 cubbie shelf. The lower cubbies are used for shoes, then there's 2 for library books - 1 for the kids, 1 for mine; and 1 for my planning binder and the binders for the kids completed stuff.

 

We have an old fashioned secretary hutch with drawers - 1 drawer is for our frequently used school stuff.

 

I have a plastic drawer set with 2 small and 4 large bins. I use this as a kind of workbox system. I keep the kids currently stuff in there - not daily more like weekly. 1 drawer is reading/writing, 1 is math, 1 is science, 1 for Vicki's stuff (although since I set up the Tot Trays I'll change this) and 1 for our theme. I plan to set up trays/bins/something on our dining room table each day with our current days stuff so I can just grab it easy. We do most of our actual school in the living room so the dining room table is usually free (except for my laptop of course).

 

I have one drawer in a file cabinet that I keep anything on themes I have already planned but that aren't our current plan (a lot of stuff leftover from themes we've done that I'm holding until we do it again).

 

I'm trying to get organized as possible before we have to start "real" school for both kids so that I'm not constantly struggling with it. We are hoping to expand our house but for now I'm trying to find the best way to work with what we have.

[robsiew]

Do you just keep adding bookshelves? I have one smallish bookshelf for curriculum and some cabinets on the wall in our school room area. Although, I do have to say I don't collect a lot of books. We read ALL the time, but any books I can get at the library I do. We have an excellent state-wide library system so we use it 2-3 times a week. The books I do buy are either curriculum books or books we use for long term (children's encyclopedias for history or the core books for science). So basically what doesn't fit on the shelf or in the cabinets leaves (and I have to save curriculum because I have 4 children going through...)

 

Do you use supply cabinets? If you consider the cabinets on the wall than yes.

 

How do you store the tidbits - art supplies, manipulatives, geometric shapes, etc? My kids aren't real crafty so we don't have a lot of this type of thing. (Give them photo copy paper, a pencil and a pair of scissors and they create almost anything!) They have a table downstairs in the basement that has some craft things at it. Any art supplies are kept in my cabinets on the wall and a plastic bin. Math manipulatives are kept in a bin (we use MUS so there aren't a ton of things, just the set of blocks).

 

Do you use three-ring binders or hanging file folders for completed years? In our school area are two double file cabinets. Each child has one drawer labeled with his/her name. The cabinet has file folders labeled by month/year (also with their name). Any finished work goes into the folder for that month. Then at the end of the year I take out all the folders and place them in a file bin. I haven't been able to make the notebooks work. I may try them for logic stage though....

[Nicole M]

We also have a small house, no storage, and our children are a little older, 13 & 18, so we've collected a lot of stuff over the years of schooling at home.

 

One thing that I did not realize was that I would need to work so hard at moving things out of the house, and that bringing things in could not be an endless process.

 

Two things have helped. We were doing school in one of the smallest rooms in our house. I moved all the furniture around, made the living room into the dining room, and managed to make the brightest room into the school room. I wanted to be in the most pleasant room in the house if that was where I would spend the most hours of my day. So swapping rooms was the first big help.

 

Second, I keep only the things we currently use in that room. I bought smaller shelves, and have moved the things we don't use into the garage in labeled plastic bins.

 

How do you store the tidbits - art supplies, manipulatives, geometric shapes, etc? I have a small wooden set of drawers where I keep these things, and the drawers are labeled.

 

For other tidbits, which get more expensive as the children get older, I have a small wardrobe type cabinet. The printer, all the paper and science supplies are in there.

 

Do you use three-ring binders or hanging file folders for completed years? I hate three-ring binders. I put the completed year's work into what I think is called a report binder, because it will lie flat. (It's the kind that has two metal prongs that go through the holes in the paper then fold down and fasten flat.) These go in a box in the attic for my future daughters-in-law to deal with when I'm gone. :D

 

As we get closer to the end of our homeschool journey, I realize we just did not need as much stuff as we had. I am much happier with less stuff.

 

Last Christmas, I hit a wall and needed to really rethink our space -- that's when I rearranged our whole house, much to my family's dismay. I found this blog to be inspirational:

 

http://wildflowersandmarbles.blogspot.com/2009/06/detailed-look-through-learning-spaces.html

 

She has more space than I do, and I would not put things on open shelves like that, high up, but I love the intentionality of her approach.

[happyhomemaker25]

We have a bigger house. But to our "bigger" house we added five kids and soon a newborn. Now, if we just ate and slept here we would fit perfectly, but we LIVE here. LOL

For our homeschool I just decided to put it all out there. I have big maps up in the dining room, where we do school. I have one tall bookshelf in the corner of the dining room. On this bookshelf are all the books we are currently using. On top of the bookshelf I have two of the medium size rubber maid containers that hold all of our manipulatives. On one shelf I have two pencil boxes that hold extra pencils, pens, erasers.. whatever. Each child has a binder that we keep all work for the year in. I go through and rip up workbooks at the beginning of the year and put all of that in there. There is also a pencil pouch for their crayons, pencils, and markers. Those all fit on the bottom shelf.

For extra craft stuff I have two free standing closets in the room the kids use for crafts (it's supposed to be like a formal living room.. haha!) All of our craft stuff is in those closets in bins.

Our games and extra homeschool books are in a built in closet (put in by mistake by the builders... THANK YOU LORD!) in the same room.

It sounds all neat and organzied but it rarely is. LOL Most of the time stuff does not go back where it came from or does not fit where it is supposed to go!

My advice is to just keep trying different things. It took me three years to get to this place. I am happy with it because it's the best I can do right now.

[NanceXToo]

I have a "china cabinet" that I took over for school stuff. It's got 3 shelves inside the glass doors, two of them are various supplies and one is this year's curriculum stuff. I keep extra notebooks and a box of small craft supplies and magazines we use for cutting pictures out of and some puzzles and things up on top of it.

 

I have a couple of bookcases for different books for the kids that aren't quite curriculum stuff but poetry books and science experiment books and craft books and my homeschool books and atlases and reading books and various things like that.

 

Then I took over the small closet in the computer room (which used to be the dining room before I made the kitchen an eat in kitchen instead) and I put a small rolling file cart in there, and that's where I keep various paperwork and finished art projects and extra construction paper and all sorts of things like that, as well as more craft supplies and board games and science kits etc.

 

We also have a 'craft bin' that sits out that the kids can grab from whenever they want.

 

When we finish a year's worth of school, I box it up, label it by grade, and store it in my bedroom closet (I suppose I could find room in the basement too if need be).

 

Stuff that is for later grades that I'm not ready to use yet for this year also stays boxed up and labeled by grades and those boxes are currently in my bedroom closet. So when I'm done with this year, that'll go up and the next year's stuff will come down and take its place.

[Smithie]

I packed away my wedding china to make room for homeschool books in the dining room storage cabinet :D The globe, maps etc. are also in there, as is the hanging file folder box.

 

For art supplies, we have one drawer in the kitchen island. For "school supplies," the other island drawer. Keeping the space limited in this way causes me to pare down the stuff that we aren't really using. And I got rid of a whole bunch of kitchen junk that I was not ever using!

 

FOR US, it's important to hide away the school stuff when it's not it use, and our house has a very open floorplan, so rollcarts wouldn't work. And FOR US, hanging file folders have been a much more efficient use of space than TWTM-style binders. I loathe binders anyhow. We use bound composition books for history notebooking, and will probably start a dictation/narration notebook in the same format next year. One can fit quite a few filled composition books crammed together on a shelf.

[MrsMe]

I would LOVE to have a library cart! I've looked around, though, and they are pretty expensive. Wish I could find something that is reasonably priced. We're setting up a school area in my art studio and a rolling cart would be perfect.

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

 

I got my cart at Harbor Freight and it has a locking drawer. $65. Pretty cheap!

 

http://search.harborfreight.com/cpisearch/web/search.do?keyword=cart

 

This one shows for $99, but it was on sale.

[FO4UR]

I have a small room in the basement that was going to be a school room, but now it's a "momma-cave" which means it's storage for all sewing/crafting/schooling stuff. The things we are using currently are upstairs in the boys' bedroom. I use some sterilite boxes for "workboxes" and most of our supplies are in those, ready to go. I also have a lockable cabinet upstairs, and I keep supplies in there too (manipulatives and stuff I don't want scattered to the 4 winds).

[LisaC]

All of our work from previous years is organized by child and subject and stored in a box in the attic. We keep our everyday books on one set of shelves. Each child has a rubbermaid box (shoe box size) for pencils, pens, erasers, scissors, etc., and those are stored in a cabinet, along with math manipulatives (in a giant under-the-bed sized container. I have another large box (Crate and Barrel double-sweater sized) where I store all of the CD's and flashcards. Don't forget the beauty of freezer bags, too. All of our flashcards are stored in those inside the big sweater box. All of our craft supplies are in separate boxes in another cabinet. We do not have an official school room--we work at the kitchen table, so I have to be creative and use lots of boxes where things can stay organized and hidden. It sounds complicated here, but it really is simple. The kids all grab their one box each day; they go to the shelves to get the materials they need, and clean up is much easier at the end of the day. I am a former lit teacher, so having lots of bookshelves in the house is a given--that's where we store our reading material. We are seriously considering converting our formal dining into a library to make more room.

[Happy2BaMom]

...and so am just getting around to reading the many responses. Thanks, everyone, for your contributions. It helps just to read that people have many different systems to handle the amount of 'stuff' (and, yes, Chris_in_VA, I have already bought too much :lol:), and that you sometimes have to be creative in finding ways to store/keep track of it all.

 

I like the idea (sorry, can't remember who's it was) of taking over the living room...we never use that anyway and if I can convince my husband to move that overpriced sofa I fell in love with five years ago (a PG-related hormonal surge, no doubt), I think we'll do that, plus add a bookshelf, storage cabinet & filing cabinet (no, I don't YET have that much stuff, but I'm preparing for the lean years!).

 

Again, thanks for the many responses. I do feel less overwhelmed!!

 

Janet

[cjbeach]

Well I bought workboxes x3 for 3 kiddos and they didn't work for us. So now they store our stuff.:001_smile:

I have books on 2 seperate bookshelves.

I just downsized into a 2br house so we donated a lot of books to our library. I had to, I had books *everywhere*, every room of the house incl bathrooms. Now I'm trying not to buy more books and use the library more.

[mom31257]

:lurk5:

[mom2fiveboysnc]

we currently have a room/den we use for a desk for mom and bookshelves for our hs stuff. i currently have 4 bookshelves (stacking ones that we got on clearance at bed, bath and beyond) that have 3 shelves each. i also have 1 bookshelf beside the desk for my tm and books. i have a lateral filing cabinet that my printers sit on beside my desk. i keep our printer papers, hanging files and other supplies in this. one set of bookshelves are organized by child's name to a shelf, the bottom shelf hold our rubbermaid baskets which has each child's notebooks, pencils, scissors, etc in them. the top shelf is dvd/movies. this takes up one whole bookshelf. the other 2 bookshelves stacked on each other have games on top shelf, bible/art/music on 2nd shelf. history books on next shelf, science on next shelf, readers on next shelf and bottom shelf has plastic boxes with extra pencils, markers, supplies, etc. any books that i won't be using this year are in the basement in rubbermaid containers. last year's records are also in basement in rubbermaid container. i try to not keep too much.

[wy_kid_wrangler04]

We just starting hsing ds, 7, as of January 1 and yet already I"m starting to feel overwhelmed with all the books, papers, curriculum, folders, etc. - and I'm usually the one who finds it easy to organize! We have years and another child ahead of us for hsing - how do other people handle this?!

 

Do you just keep adding bookshelves?

Do you use supply cabinets?

How do you store the tidbits - art supplies, manipulatives, geometric shapes, etc?

Do you use three-ring binders or hanging file folders for completed years?

 

I'm pretty good at discarding things we don't need to keep, but there still is a lot of material that builds up quickly!

 

If this has been discussed in another thread, please let me know...I did try to search but didn't have much luck.

 

Thanks!

 

Janet

 

 

Yes I have more bookshelves than you would believe! I have 8 in the living room :001_huh: 3 in my classroom:001_huh: (that is more of an off year storage room) and more of those sterlite plastic 3 stackable drawer things than I care to admit. I actually use those for art supplies (the different drawers diff items. 1 has paper. construction, drawing, graphing, another has crayons, scissors, glue sticks stuff like that, then the third has all my little dollar here dollar there art trinkets I just CANT live with out (yet havent used hardly any,:001_huh: go figure) and I am getting another for reading (1 drawer per grade level) My house is decent sized, but OH YES there is NO question that we are a homeschool family when you walk in :001_smile:

 

I have a bookshelf for all subjects, and right now math manipulatives fit on the math shelf.

 

I keep my plant cell and animal cell models on the science shelf, as well as our magnifying glass. We need to get a good microscope, that will stay on top of the bookshelf in the classroom (out of little hands)

 

OH and for everyday things my kids have backpacks. That is for what they use EVERYDAY in school for this year. That helps to keep it all in one place and in theory is supposed to keep it from getting lost :glare:

Edited April 25, 2010 by wy_kid_wrangler04

[Closeacademy]

Christy, what type of rolling cart do you use for your children? Do you have a picture? Where did you buy them?

 

 

I bought mine at Aldi's a few months back. I had wanted the ones they had a Joanne's at Christmas time but they were all out in my local store.

 

Here is a post on my blog where I added a picture of one of the carts:

 

http://closeacademy.blogspot.com/2010/02/monday-morning_22.html

 

They have nice deep drawers and roll across the floor easy enough for the children to push. We keep their school supply boxes on top of the carts so they make an extra table.:001_smile:

[Kim in SouthGa]

We do not have a school room. Our "base" is the dining room, which has to be used as an actual dining room a few times a month, so I have to get creative. I have two bookshelves in there, one with all the reference and literature books on it (tall, 5 shelf), and a smaller one with all the history stuff for the year. I have small baskets and decorative boxes with supplies in them. I just bought a Desk Apprentice and am in love :) (you can look it up on Staples.com). I have all my current TMs, hanging folders for blank paper and papers to be graded, pencils, etc. right on the table for everyone to find easily. I just bough my oldest a cool cart thing-it has a big drawer for hanging folders (put a lot of stuff he doesn't use day to day in there, and research stuff), a smaller drawer for pencils & supplies, and a shelf on top for all his books. It rolls and is nice looking and sturdy. Got it at Office Depot for $45. I would love to get all of us one eventually. Right now the two younger ones have fileboxes for our modified work box system. All their other stuff is stored in our converted coat closet in the hallway. I also have art supplies in there in a plastic cart and a bookshelf with more reference and stuff I use just occasionally. And all my catalogs, and instruments. And hangers on the door for backpacks. I have a basket on my kitchen counter with files in it for all the copies I made at the beginning of the year of tests and summary pages. Oh, in the closet, I have a file holder on the wall for things waiting to be filed. Every 9 weeks or so I file it all in their yearly binder, which is in a cabinet in the laundry room with other occasionally used books, and all my geography, science, art, and music books, as well as some stuff waiting to be used by younger kids. All the stuff I won't be using for a while is put away in storage boxes in the storage building. I put all their yearly binders in there as well, except I keep the one from the previous year out in case I find the occasional paper that we missed. Oh and all the history books we are not using are on bookshelves in my 3dd's closet-but that is going to have to change now that she can open the door! I am going to try to squeeze one more bookshelf into the dining room. I have a small desk in my bedroom with my laptop (and a lot of junk) and a bookshelf with the printer on it and all my homeschool how to/encouragement books. We have an armoire in the foyer with the desktop computer in it.

hth