Organizing Your Homeschool Supplies and Papers

I’ve been collecting teaching stuff for a long time. It all started when our oldest daughter was a little three-year-old girl and we were starting preschool. All of a sudden I found reason to stash great big stacks of construction paper, washable glue, glitter glue, finger puppets, felt storyboard pieces, letter puzzles, adorable Signing Time flash cards and more homeschool supplies than I could count  in our little townhouse. And I needed a method to contain the madness.

At about that time, I was reading books by Emilie Barnes and in her book More Hours In My Day she talks about the “perfect” box. Her perfect box to organize and store your entire household wasn’t exactly what I was looking for though. For one thing, they were too expensive. For another, they were made of cardboard and I had a growing family.

I went on a search for the perfect container that would fit our family. One that would hold loose supplies, sit nicely on a shelf, and also hold 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper without bending. You know, so that we could save precious artwork and papers and construction paper neatly. Surprisingly, I found that many of the standard-sized containers I could find at local stores fell just short of holding an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper.

We had already bought these black wire shelves at Target on sale for super cheap (I think they were $35 the first time I bought them!) So whatever container I found needed to fit on these shelves.

After what felt like months of searching, I found these perfectly-sized sweater boxes online and knew they were just what I was looking for. I drug my husband to the nearest local store about forty-five minutes away. That was the beginning of my love for The Container Store. We found that with all the shelves equally spaced we could fit these sweater boxes stacked by twos, four to a shelf, with two stacked shoe box sized containers in-between. Twenty-four will fit on a single shelf unit in this fashion. When we moved to New York a couple years later, I bought a couple more shelves and actually ordered an entire case of sweater boxes to line my shelves and hopefully get me organized once and for all.

Thirteen years and five kids later, I have come to realize that my homeschool will never be 100% organized. However, that basic system I started all those years ago still works for us today. I now have a total of five shelves, and over 30 plastic containers, all labeled and waiting for the moment they are needed. Some contain school supplies, and some contain organized toys like army men, musical instruments, card games and other small items.

Larger containers on the bottom row of shelving contain a ginormous LEGO collection, wooden blocks, costumes, and other items requiring more storage space. Every six months or so, I have to go through all the containers and make sure they are sorted correctly since the little ones still don’t quite have the discipline to put things away properly or the skill to read labels. But for the most part, it’s a system that works.

When my six-year-old started complaining about being bored on this rainy afternoon (and begging me to add more time on his gaming tablet), my organizational system allowed me to say with confidence “Come with me, and I will find you something to do.” We marched downstairs hand-in-hand and found a box with construction paper in various colors just waiting to be crafted. We gathered glue and scissors for little hands. And he settled in for a good hour of creating at our little school table. Later, we replaced the craft box with a box of pattern blocks and a matching book. It was a happy way to spend the afternoon, for both of us.

So what exactly would you put into the “perfect” containers? Here’s what you’d find in ours right now.

Kids Arts and Crafts Supply Box

• Children’s Glue
• Scissors
• Glitter
• Glitter Glue
• Cookie Cutters
• Chenille Stems
• Confetti
• Twine
• Yarn
• Stickers
• Colored Pencils
• Crayons
• Tissue Paper

Mom’s Arts and Crafts Supply Box

• Hot Glue Gun with extra sticks
• Tacky Glue
• Modge Podge
• Buttons
• Fancy metallic papers
• Paints
• Oil Pastels
• Craft Scissors
• Craft Punches
• Scrapbook Adhesives

Teaching Reading Box

• Bob Books
• Reading Flash Cards (Alphabet, Dolch Sight Words, etc.)
• I Can Read It Books
• See-Through Reading Rulers

Teaching Supplies Box

• Felt Pieces for the Easter Story
• Food Pyramid Pocket Chart
• Regular Pocket Chart
• Reward Stickers
• Reward Badges
• Reward Medals

Teaching Math Box

• Math Flash Cards Variety
• Learning Wrap Ups
• Times Tales Book
• Touch Math Pieces

Early Learning Supplies Box

• Laurie Puzzles
• Lacing Cards
• Rainbow Parachute
• Finger Puppets

In Their Own Containers

• Pattern Blocks and Books
• Cuisenaire Rods and Books
• Construction Papers
• Scrapbook Papers
• Army Men
• Plastic Animals
• Musical Instruments like rhythm sticks and tambourines and a triangle.
• Playdough and Tools
• Random Games
• Card Games and Dominoes
• Learning Games
• Special Keepsakes (one container for each child)
• LEGO instruction guides
• Sewing Patterns
• Rubber Stamps
• Sizzix templates and machine
• Gift Bags and Tissue Paper

Organizing Personal Homeschool Supplies for Each Child

So – that tells you how I organize the global supplies. Let’s talk about how I organize each child’s school supplies and books. This year, we got cardboard banker’s boxes. Each child has one of their own for all their books and school supplies. These stack on that same wire shelving unit–two per shelf. We keep this shelf upstairs in our pantry just off the school room for easy access.

I will say, the cardboard boxes are taking quite a bit of wear and tear just a couple months into the school year. We bought a set of ten at the office store for $18, and have already replaced one. At a $1.80 each, that’s not too bad. However, had money not been so tight at the beginning of the school year I would have opted for these Really Useful Boxes. (Yep, they’re actually called that.) I actually love the Really Useful Box® line and have started replacing my old sweater boxes with this size one at a time as I can afford them. They are almost triple the price, but quite a bit more sturdy.

Organizing the Global Supplies in the School Room

Some of the supplies we use are for everyone. These include a huge stash of pencils and pens, adult scissors, kids scissors, a ruler, a fabulous electric pencil sharpener, a three-hole punch, and a tape dispenser. The larger supplies are at the desk, but for the pencils I use this fun turning caddy from Pampered Chef.

Organizing Our Books

We have a lot of books. Each book type gets its own shelf. We have a shelf for science, a shelf for history, a shelf for Bible, a shelf for language arts, and a shelf for encyclopedias of various types. We have six shelves for picture books, and six shelves for chapter books, and a couple shelves for early readers. The upper shelves are reserved for “Daddy’s books” which include our Bible reference books, study guides, and collection of Chuck Swindoll, etc. We have six of these tall wooden bookshelves in all, plus six shelves included in our desk system.

To keep track of all the crazy books we have, we used this system to create an inventory.