How does everyone organize their active curriculum?

[Clarita]

This was my first year doing anything that official. My dining table is covered with schoolbooks the whole year. I need help/ideas. I googled and I'm not sure which are just for instagram and which would truly work. 

[barnwife]

My way isn't pretty. But it's working, so I need to release that.

I use plastic milk crates for some, and other plastic boxes (dish drainer size-ish) that I got at either Walmart or the Dollar Tree. We have one that holds MT stuff, one that holds written work we do upstairs (mostly maths), and 2 that hold what we call table time (LA stuff, maths for the 5 yo,). One sits on the kitchen counter and one is in a kitchen cabinet. The MT one is in the living room, and the maths one is in our bedroom. We have a set of 3 plastic drawers in the kitchen where we have manipulative type things. It also serves as entertainment for the baby.

I try to keep each kids stuff in its own section in the boxes, but that doesn't always happen. We also have one of those plastic magazine holder things for assigned reading things for the oldest.

I dream of having it all organized in one cabinet, but that just hasn't happened space-wise. I'd love a libary book cart thing for all the downstairs stuff, but $$$ so it hasn't happened.

We don't have a dining room, so can't keep everything on the table. 
 

[PeterPan]

I have a bookshelf with a shelf for each subject for things we're actively trying to use this year. I have a table with vertical bins (think magazine racks but a little wider/deeper to hold notebooks) that I keep workbooks, folders with worksheets, clipboards, etc. in for our current daily work. Also on that table are notebooks I use for a variety of subjects. I have a plastic shelving unit beside our together work table that holds all our math manipulatives, math games, etc. Beyond that, flex seating and a computer station. I try to keep storage stuff (things not in current active use) in another room so that our homeschool room stays visually calm. I keep a small drawer tower beside our work table to hold paper, tape, markers, etc. and some cups on the table to hold pencils, scissors, etc. Whiteboards (11X17, I'm addicted to these) lean casually against the wall.

Edited March 21, 2022 by PeterPan

[PeterPan]

1 hour ago, Clarita said:

My dining table is covered

When in doubt, go vertical! Just think through what you own or can find cheaply that will allow you to go vertical and go with it. Could be an armoire with doors, a bookshelf, anything lying around or that you can snag for free/cheap. Could be something you go to Target and find. Lowes and Walmart usually have those plastic shelving units for not too much. We're in March, so around July you'll have back2school sales with cool things. That's when you'll find those bigger style magazine racks that will hold notebooks. They're like $3, not too bad.

[Clarita]

4 hours ago, barnwife said:

My way isn't pretty. But it's working, so I need to release that.

Well, I started with a cute basket. That lasted until I got a few teacher's manuals then it was too small, and things overflowed to the rest of the dining table. 

I like the crate idea for portability because we do homeschool in several areas. Math happens on the floor, reading/history happens on the couch, science in the kitchen/outside, handwriting is the only thing that happens at the school table.

3 hours ago, PeterPan said:

That's when you'll find those bigger style magazine racks that will hold notebooks. They're like $3, not too bad.

Do you mean these things? https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Houseware-Magazine-Holder-Organizer/dp/B06ZZ3QTST/ref=asc_df_B06ZZ3QTST/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198092106120&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12680224283634845771&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9032039&hvtargid=pla-349092365216&psc=1

I had a hard time using the bookshelf because some of the paperback stuff/coil bound stuff kept flopping over. 

[HomeAgain]

DS is currently using a Sterilite or Rubbermaid tub, can't remember which.  It's tall, so the books stand up, and skinny, so it doesn't take up much room.  There's space on the top for his pencil, straight edge, and box of crayons. 

It's working well for us because it's easy to move from place to place and he doesn't have to do anything but drop his materials in when he's done.  We have a struggle with putting things back on shelves or in drawers sometimes. 😉

[Clemsondana]

I've done different things at different times.  At one time I had a bookcase with a shelf or 2 per kid for their active materials.  At another, I sat in a rocking chair and each kid had a small stack to work from.  I've put each kid's materials in a tote or crate and then had another for resources that are likely to be used so that they don't have to dig around on the bookcases looking for biographies or illustrated books or whatever.  For a while, each had a desk and their materials went on the shelf attached to their desk.  I've set each kid up with a 2-cubbie shelf that sits near where they do most of their work.  Currently one has a big storage...trunk? It's like a huge box with an attached lid that we got at Target...that holds their materials.  The other has a couple of baskets.  They are now teens and prefer to keep their stuff in their rooms rather than in the playroom that we used to use to do school when they were younger.  

[Slache]

When they were little it was all in a wooden box I got at Michael's. The box went on the bookshelf and was carried to the table daily.

Now I have a cabinet by the table like people used to hold additional plates in and put cooked dishes on top of on holidays. It was $100 at Ikea. It has 4 adjustable shelves so the bottom two I have large enough for binders and books and the top two have things. I use a small toolbox for math manipulatives and a cutlery tray for various writing implements. My 3 whole punch, procklick, laminator, paper cutter and stapler are all in there. All of the curriculum not in use is on another bookshelf sorted by category.

My kindergartener and 3rd grader keep ALL of their curriculum in a binder. They are mostly workbook based and the binders are big. My 5th grader has a regular binder and keeps his curriculum in two magazine holders so it's easy to transport from cabinet to table.

[8filltheheart]

I bought this cabinet several yrs ago to put in our kitchen on the wall near our kitchen table:

Wesley Accent Console  | Costco

[Brittany1116]

5 years in using primarily nonconsumables... Kindy has an old school desk and his current stuff goes in the shelf below his seat. Bigger kid has a larger desk between two book shelves and his current stuff (as well as the 2 teacher guides I need) are stacked on the desk. All books not in use for the year are on one book shelf, and the many math teacher books that span the grades between them are in a box in my closet. We also have a metal rolling cart for other school materials, and it is stationed betweeen their desks.

[mathmarm]

Of course we have the typical book-shelfs and baskets. But the real MVP of our Home School Organization system is Backpacks! We keep a teacher book-bag and each student has a backpack. The bags get hung on wall hooks when not in use. Backpacks are easy to take in the car and travel with when we have to be on the move (which is a couple of times a week usually, but some times its much more often).

Student Backpack contains:

• a big binder that holds:
  • a hole-puncher
  • two 1-subject notebooks  (math and writing)
  • a small stack of hole-punched printer paper (drawing instruction/practice)
  • a durable folder that holds an Active Reference materials in plastic sleeve protectors with whatever they're learning
  • a pencil pouch that carries
    • manual sharpener
    • 2 wooden pencils with eraser caps
    • a 4-in-1 ink pen that writes red, green, blue and black (we do annotations/corrections in color)
    • a yellow highlighter
• 2 nonfiction books (1 Teacher choice, 1 Student choice)
• 2 chapter books / novel (1 family read and 1 student choice)
• a durable folder that contains math pages for them to do
• some graphing sticky-notes for them to do some graphing
• Active Reasoning and Writing textbook

Teacher Backpack contains:

• one 5-subject notebook (where we keep scope and sequences, example problems or assignment types for each subject, as well as notes on where the kids are in each continuum)
• a 1.5 inch binder with a few sections of printed TM instruction (from home made or  Vintage resources)
• Active Teacher Manuals we keep only the ones that we're actively using
• A Pencil Holder with pens, pencils + eraser caps, highlighters
• sticky notes because we use them a lot

We can use the Bookbags at home or on the go. Each time we use them, we put them back together and put them away.

So far, our K-3 Elementary school is very teacher-dependent. We have created our own Teacher-Led programs (phonics, handwriting, math and Geography) either from scratch or from cultivating really high-quality resources. In our homeschool, English/Language Arts uses the most "school-like" materials. After phonics and handwriting, teach Rod and Staffs Spelling By Sound and Structure, and Dynamic Literacy's WordBuild program from the TMs. Occasionally, we give the kids a few activity pages from WordBuild.

As for our in-home shelf. We try and keep all actual home schooling materials in one place. In the living room/study area we have a shelf where we keep the TMs. Most of this is Writing and ELA stuff. 

We have a shelf for teacher guide books like Writing Revolution, Drawing with Children, etc.  Then the rest of that shelf is Applied Teacher Manuals for series like WordBuild, Spelling by Sound and Structure and Reasoning and Writing for each of these the student textbooks go next to each TM, so we always know where they are and can tell right away if one is unaccounted for.

On the next shelf, we have a 3 inch phonics binder where we've printed our home made phonics program and each unit is stapled and kept in a plastic sleeve. We have a bunch of phonics readers from around the internet printed and stored in the sleeve as well, so when we have a child who is still learning phonics, we just take that particular sleeve and add it to TM binder that we carry in the book-bag. At home we have a ton of non-fiction RAZ Readers printed and stored in one of these.

For things that need to be drilled, we use rings of home made cards, which are easily stored in a box. We have a bunch of math drill pages printed and stored in the same type of box that holds the RAZ Readers by category.

Most of our shelves are actual books that the kids read. We have a reference shelf full of encyclopedias, guidebooks and oversized visual books.

We have a shelf where ALL Library books are kept so that they don't get mixed in with our personal collection.

Whatever we're actively using probably gets kept in the bookbags.

[Green Bean]

I bought a bunch of IKEA Expedit/Kallax cube sets years ago. I have a 4x4 to hold books and two 2x2 with 7 drawer sets for supplies/paper, plus a sliding cube for printer paper. I have a dedicated school/game room space, though. I also make generous use of metal magazine holders so guides and such aren’t flopping over everywhere. The color pencils live in a plastic shoebox for easy carting around as do the paint supplies.

When we lacked a schoolroom, the shelves were in the tv area and supply cubbies fit in my closet. 

Edited March 21, 2022 by Green Bean

[SilverMoon]

A bookshelf lives in our dining area for this. Each kid has one shelf where all their active books and their main binder live. Their binders have divider tabs for finished work and any needed schedules live in the front. Books they'll need but haven't gotten to yet live on top of the shelf, and the bottom shelf has random art supplies, a 3 hole puncher, extra pencils, etc. They hand finished books to me and I re-shelve them into the family library or school closet. 

 

Curricula left from older kids that may still get used by the younger kids lives in a hall closet. The items I've pulled out that the youngest ones will clearly never use lives in piles in the hallway because I never remember to make an appointment at the local used book shop. 😄

Edited March 21, 2022 by SilverMoon
Can't spell apparently

[Clarita]

I am so glad I asked this question. I think I'll try the tub/milk crate idea where their active books just go in there. I love the look of the library cart but, I think there is too much temptation there for my kids to play with the cart and I'm not sure I have any great place to stow it away where the kids can't get to it. We homeschool in a living room that I turned into a playroom. It's a large room with not a lot of useable wall space, because of walkways and windows. I already put shelving in front of the stupid fireplace that takes up an entire wall.  

[Servant4Christ]

We use a room that doubles as DH's business office. 3 small wooden desks with drawers (like what many used to have in their bedrooms) pushed against/facing each other right in the center of the room. It basically works the same as a square dining room table except each child has 3 drawers and a top middle drawer. We have a small chest high bookcase that I picked up on the side of the road and had DH reinforce on the backside to stabilize it. 3 shelves: one for textbooks, one for TMs, and one for boxes that contain manipulatives. Both shelves are in grade order with a couple of collapsible magazine holders on the end for workbooks/consumables. Any texts/TMs not in current use are boxed by grade and stacked in a small closet in the same room. Stuff like paper, pencils, holepunch, stapler, ect are considered office supplies thus I put them on DH's office bookshelf for easy access to everyone.

[freesia]

Each child has a wicker school basket.  There is a shelf on the bookcase for teacher books and curriculum I hope to get to.  For morning time/group books, for years I used a wicker basket. Now I put those books on a shelf under the coffee table. 

[alisoncooks]

On 3/20/2022 at 8:09 PM, Clarita said:

My dining table is covered with schoolbooks the whole year.

Yep. Sounds about right. This is The Way. 

[Lori D.]

We schooled on the living room couches and coffee table, so each boy had a heavy-duty stackable plastic crate. All books currently being used, plus textbooks, spiral notebooks, and teacher guides fit into the crate, side by side spine up. Also my 3-ring notebook that held the weekly schedules. Several plastic lidded pencil boxes fit on top of the books/notebooks -- one for pencils and erasers, one for colored pencils, and one for whiteboard markers and small miscellaneous items.

Crates stacked in the laundry room, came out for use, and as items were pulled out and used, they were stacked at one end of the coffee table. At the end of the day, each boy returned his materials to the crate, picked up the loose items and put them back into their respective pencil box, and took their crate back to the laundry room.

All the books that were not currently in use, but would be used at some point in the school year were on 1-2 shelves of one specific bookcase.

All science kits and supplies went into a separate, stackable, lidded bin, kept in the laundry room until needed. Same for all art supplies and kits.

Occasional use supplies (3-hole punch, computer printer, stapler, guillotine paper cutter, etc.) were stored in the room that was the dedicated office.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Lori D.

[Lori D.]

On 3/21/2022 at 10:27 AM, Clarita said:

... I think I'll try the tub/milk crate idea where their active books just go in there... but...  not sure I have any great place to stow it away... We homeschool in a living room that I turned into a playroom. It's a large room with not a lot of useable wall space...

Laundry room? Floor of the linen closet? Garage? Mud room? Under the stairs if you have a second story? Corner of your living room/playroom, and toss a decorative cloth over it? Under the coffee table? Pull out the couch or loveseat away from the wall and make a storage area behind it?

Edited March 23, 2022 by Lori D.

[TheAttachedMama]

We use the ALEX drawer units from Ikea.  Each older kid (8th to high school) has a drawer for each subject. (We took two ALEX drawer units and then put a butcher block cabinet top across them to make a REALLY long desk.).  They are supposed to put their books away after each subject.   And they are supposed to do their school at their desks.  

In reality, they bring all of their books upstairs and stack them up on the dining room table, where they prefer to work, and then they put them in their drawers at the end of the day.   So our desks are glorified storage boxes.

All this to say, you can engineer the perfect solution and you will STILL end up with books all over the tables.   I agree... This is the way!  

Edited March 23, 2022 by TheAttachedMama

[wendyroo]

Each of my kids started life with a canvas sling, front-facing bookshelf in their bedroom. When they were around 5 they upgraded to a cube shelf in their bedroom to hold their plethora of reading books, and the sling bookshelf moved downstairs to hold their school work. That system works well for us - everyone knows who's bookshelf is whose, so any stray materials can be quickly tossed in the right place. They can sort their materials by shelf if they want. And the materials are easily visible so I can tell at a glance if they have left things scattered about. In fact, for my youngest two, I take a picture of the shelf perfectly filled, print it out, and post it right above their shelf so they can self-check if everything is neatly where it is supposed to be. 

[Clarita]

3 hours ago, Lori D. said:

Pull out the couch or loveseat away from the wall and make a storage area behind it?

Actually.... that is a good idea.

2 hours ago, wendyroo said:

Each of my kids started life with a canvas sling, front-facing bookshelf in their bedroom. When they were around 5 they upgraded to a cube shelf in their bedroom to hold their plethora of reading books, and the sling bookshelf moved downstairs to hold their school work. That system works well for us - everyone knows who's bookshelf is whose, so any stray materials can be quickly tossed in the right place. They can sort their materials by shelf if they want. And the materials are easily visible so I can tell at a glance if they have left things scattered about. In fact, for my youngest two, I take a picture of the shelf perfectly filled, print it out, and post it right above their shelf so they can self-check if everything is neatly where it is supposed to be. 

I don't know if I can manage to get our shelves to that state long enough for me to take the picture... 😜

[Lori D.]

4 hours ago, Lori D. said:

...Pull out the couch or loveseat away from the wall and make a storage area behind it?

30 minutes ago, Clarita said:

Actually.... that is a good idea.

If you have the room, you could put one of those hinge-lid storage benches  in the center behind the couch, and then on either end of that unit (if the couch isn't in a corner) could be your crates, or a short cubby, or other storage unit. Or, if your couch is in a corner, then the hinge-lid storage bench in the corner, and the crates at the accessible end of the couch.

I suggest the hinge-lid storage to make it easy to lean over the couch, open the lid, and get at stored items.

[Dianthus]

I also school at the kitchen table. I use a wheeled bookshelf like a library cart. I have a few magazine baskets on top to organize each child's smaller workbooks and one for my stuff. The middle shelf is all text books and binders. The bottom shelf has binders, a caddie, our hole punch, boxes of flash cards, and one more magazine basket with odds and ends, like the abacus and ruler and other charts.  Overflow (not daily use stuff) like math manipulatives or extra history encyclopedias are on a stationary shelf in the closet.

Eta. I wheel this to the table in the morning. We reload it before dinner and the shelf returns to the closet.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Spirea

[prairiewindmomma]

IKEA Trofast bins for the active stuff with each bin labeled like a work box setup (math, science, history, ELA, etc)

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

We are in the minority, I suppose, in that we have a dedicated classroom.

I store the year’s “active” curricula in a pair of IKEA Kallax cube units. My materials are kept on a 3-tier rolling cart & DS’ work is set up workbox-style in a 10-drawer rolling cart. We use a drop-leaf table as our primary desk space. There’s also a small corner computer desk & a settee for reading.

“Inactive” curricula are stored on additional Kallax units in a closet beneath the stairs. 

[kiwik]

At the moment a couple of plastic bins under the coffee tables.  A lot of hot stuff is done on line though and because of the hassle of getting books a lot of our books are on kindle.

[J-rap]

I'm done homeschooling, but we had lots of bookshelves.  A big one for all the main shared books/curriculum -- whether currently or not currently used.  Then each child had their own shelf for books/curriculum they were currently using.  This was all in the dining room where we homeschooled.   That makes it sounds like our dining room was surrounded by bookshelves, but they were pretty compact so it never felt overwhelming.  We homeschooled at the dining room table.

We also had a window seat there which was a perfect area to have in-box/out-box trays.  The kids would return any completed assignments to those trays.

ETA:  The last thing we did at the end of each school day was to make sure the dining room table was completely cleared.  We used the table to eat, as well as other activities in the evenings -- so I didn't want it piled up with homeschool stuff all the time.

Edited April 4, 2022 by J-rap

[Dianthus]

4 hours ago, J-rap said:

I'm done homeschooling, but we had lots of bookshelves.  A big one for all the main shared books/curriculum -- whether currently or not currently used.  Then each child had their own shelf for books/curriculum they were currently using.  This was all in the dining room where we homeschooled.   That makes it sounds like our dining room was surrounded by bookshelves, but they were pretty compact so it never felt overwhelming.  We homeschooled at the dining room table.

We also had a window seat there which was a perfect area to have in-box/out/box-trays.  The kids would return any completed assignments to those trays.

ETA:  The last thing we did at the end of each school day was to make sure the dining room table was completely cleared.  We used to the table to eat, as well as other activities in the evenings -- so I didn't want it piled up with homeschool stuff all the time.

When we moved into this house, a couple years before deciding to homeschool, I removed the bookshelves that lined a hallway 😕  It really opened up this nice wide hall, but wow, I'd like those bookshelves now. I'm thinking of adding a half height bookshelf down the hallway, space would still feel open and would have much more bookspace. However, I don't want the top to pile up with stuff or be used as a toy racetrack. Wondering if we could angle the top.

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

15 minutes ago, Spirea said:

, I don't want the top to pile up with stuff or be used as a toy racetrack. Wondering if we could angle the top.

You could always intentionally decorate it. I find that if a surface is left bare, it attracts junk - but if it’s given a purpose, even a decorative one, it’s left alone. Particularly if the shelves house your homeschooling materials the top could be a display area for beautifully-illustrated books on whatever topic you’re studying, nature items, crafts /artwork, etc. 

[J-rap]

1 hour ago, Spirea said:

When we moved into this house, a couple years before deciding to homeschool, I removed the bookshelves that lined a hallway 😕  It really opened up this nice wide hall, but wow, I'd like those bookshelves now. I'm thinking of adding a half height bookshelf down the hallway, space would still feel open and would have much more bookspace. However, I don't want the top to pile up with stuff or be used as a toy racetrack. Wondering if we could angle the top.

I agree -- you can kind of decorate the top -- maybe with plants or something, so that it doesn't get used for depositing junk.

[Dianthus]

2 hours ago, Shoes+Ships+SealingWax said:

You could always intentionally decorate it. I find that if a surface is left bare, it attracts junk - but if it’s given a purpose, even a decorative one, it’s left alone. Particularly if the shelves house your homeschooling materials the top could be a display area for beautifully-illustrated books on whatever topic you’re studying, nature items, crafts /artwork, etc. 

Right now, I have a minimalist gallery wall in that hall, with about 8 framed photos on that wall. I was considering a ledge on the top of the bookshelf and framed pictures resting on that. Though, I do also have boys and a couple of the current pictures have fallen due to missiles of some sort traveling down the hall. Lower items would likely fare worse. It's a nice long hall, so perfect for throwing and racing things.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Spirea

[Clarita]

3 hours ago, Spirea said:

It's a nice long hall, so perfect for throwing and racing things.

My long hallways are barren. My husband, kids and the cats like to use them as racetracks. We put up a batting cage in the backyard for projectile play.

17 hours ago, Shoes+Ships+SealingWax said:

We are in the minority, I suppose, in that we have a dedicated classroom.

I thought about having a dedicated space, but our current stage school and play blend and it's easier to school and play in the same space. Plus, they have take so many breaks that the school day would be so long if I had to herd them from one space to another all the time.

[mmasc]

This is what I’ve always loved using for my teacher manuals and books that I keep at my desk that I use every day. They’re super sturdy and I can line up all of my TMs to see the spines easily. Then I can just reach down and grab them. If you can wait until back-to-school time, Walmart will have tons of them in all different colors for probably about 5 bucks. 
 

I love having this to hold my “miscellaneous” type stuff—pencil cups of markers, pens, tape, sharpies, rulers, etc. I love that it rolls around wherever I need it. 

Edited April 5, 2022 by mmasc