Homeschool Storage Solutions

Guest Post

As a homeschool family, it’s likely the room (or rooms) you’ve dedicated for learning will fill up fast.

So how do you keep the “classroom” from taking over the entire house? The key is coming up with smart storage solutions. The more you plan, the more you’ll be able to make use of the materials you’ve already invested in, saving you money, time, and the environment.

Forget book shelves. Especially for younger children, they often have several shelves that are too high for easy access anyway or cram so many books in that tiny fingers can’t get pull them out. Plastic dishpans are a great alternative that make it easy for kids to flip through. Magazine storage boxes and clear shoebox organizers are also effective solutions.

Store small objects in plastic bags. Get large, high-quality zipper bags. Then just hole-punch them and insert them in notebooks. It’s an easy way to create a “filing” system for things like game pieces, puzzle pieces, buttons, and others small arts and crafts supplies.

Color code by subject. Whatever kind of organizational tools you decide to use – whether plastic storage cubes, hanging folders, or simple labels – keep a consistent system of colors to help you easily locate materials no matter where they are stored. Alternatively, you can use color-coding to organize by child if you’re homeschooling more than one at a time.

Invest in letter trays. They’re a handy way to keep yourself organized. You can use them to separate papers to correct, future lesson plans, and the next week’s activities, as well as separating by subject matter or child.

Go digital. Another great (and green) way to prevent clutter is to keep lesson plans digital when possible. Before hitting “print,” consider whether or not it would be just as effective to show on the screen, particularly for images and graphs. Then you can easily “store” the lessons for future use by maintaining an organized filing system on your computer or in cloud storage like Google Drive or Dropbox.

Use items found in nature. Instead of showing your children pictures of different types of leaves, go out and find them together. When you’re done with the lesson, you can simply return them to Mother Nature – no storage necessary!

Save empty baby jars. They also make great storage for small objects and school supplies. Since they are see-through, sometimes you don’t even need a label. It’s easy to peek inside to find what you need.

Clean out soup cans. They make great storage for pens, pencils, art brushes, markers, crayons, and other learning utensils. Replace the soup label with a cute one, and it’s a nice piece of décor for the classroom, too.

Install shelves in the garage. It’s a more affordable solution than adding shelving to areas inside the house, because aesthetics are less of a concern. You can go with some bare-bone shelves that put function over fashion.

Stick it under the bed. Find nice flat boxes or purchase ones designed specifically for under-the-bed storage. It’s a great storage option because it’s totally out of sight until you need it.

Maintain an Excel spreadsheet. So you’ve tucked away school materials in every nook and cranny of your home… but what about when it comes time to find it? Keep track of what went where with a computer spreadsheet and it will be easy to locate items when you need them.

Try a shoe organizer. Many have small nooks or pockets that are great for storing everything from notecards to glue guns. Hang it in an area that’s low and easy for the kids to access – or keep it high if you want it to house materials for teacher only!

Rent a storage unit. Once you’ve completed a particular lesson, you may still want to hold onto the materials to revisit the topic again later from a different angle or with another one of your children. A storage unit is a great place to stow away these types of things until you need them again. Also, many states require that you hold onto your child’s “portfolio” for several years. If you don’t want your home space cluttered with the paperwork, a storage unit is a great way to go.