When I first started homeschooling I thought we needed an entire room dedicated for homeschool materials and learning. I just love seeing homeschool rooms filled with bookshelves, all the art supplies and manipulatives out on display, and a door to shut behind us if the space ever got too messy to clean up later (or not).
While some folks have the extra space to fill a room for a homeschool/playroom, I know, like myself, there are many homeschooling families that don’t have that option.
Whether you have a designated homeschool room or not, today I want to share some organization ideas from my own home that will hopefully inspire you to embrace whatever space you have to work with and create a learning environment for your children that you can enjoy as well.
THE FAMOUS ROLLING HOMESCHOOL CART
My homeschool cart is my main homeschool organization spot. I found mine at Target. I keep all of our current curriculum here, along with manipulatives, books, chalkboards, dry erase boards, watercolor supplies, and pencils here. I also store my own planner here so that everything is in one place when I am ready to plan our weekly lessons.
My rolling cart is right off from our dining room, next to a bookcase turned into a dining room hutch. It’s not in the way, and I like to keep it fairly organized so that it isn’t too much of an eyesore when we aren’t using it. I love this wall craft paper holder above it for writing our weekly Bible scriptures. I will also dress it up with banners and the like when we are studying a specific nature unit or Holiday, just for fun.
CRAFT CABINET
My daughter has been really into crafts lately. I wanted her to have a place to store her supplies where she can easily pull from when she has the desire to create. Currently, her little craft cabinet is a bookcase cabinet off from our TV. I very much appreciate that the craft supplies are hidden when not in use, but conveniently close to the dining room.
Inside the craft cabinet we store materials such as crayons, markers, stamps, stickers, craft and drawing books, feathers, jewels, beads, scissors, glue, pipe cleaners, felt sheets, glitter and a few notebooks. Most of our materials are stocked from Dollar Tree, but we also pick up little things here and there when we visit Michaels and Hobby Lobby.
LEARNING TOOLS CABINET
On the opposite side of our TV is an identical bookcase cabinet where I store all of those fun learning manipulatives such as counting bears, cube links, felt money, puzzles, games, 3-part cards, magnets, and our nature tray and a magnifying glass for nature study.
My children also have access to the materials in here, but I ask that they bring out only one or two items at a time to keep things fairly organized. I like to pull some of these items out during read alouds or for my toddler when I am doing school with his big sister.
I have collected our materials for over 2 years now, and came to realize that I can find most of these things when I thrift or in the Target Bullseye section around school time in the Fall. I am always keeping an eye out for new puzzles, blocks, learning mats, and other fun hands-on resources and manipulatives when I’m thrifting for this cabinet. Because it is such a small cabinet space, I’m limited to what I bring home which works in our favor anyways because if we had too many things available, it becomes overwhelming and too stimulating for my children to hold any interest with.
BOOK ORGANIZATION
What’s homeschool without a collection of readily available living books for your children? Recently, I added a small 3-cube Billy Bookcase from Ikea to our children’s play wall in our family room. This bookcase is filled with books that we often pull out and look at for specific unit studies, or when we have a question about certain topics like animals and insects.
We have Bible-related story books and devotionals, books on animals, birds, insects, weather, world and geography, human body, poetry, art, classic literature and fables. Eventually we will outgrow this little bookcase, and it’s a goal of mine to thrift our way to a home library with books for just about any topic for my children to grab, open and explore both in lessons and independently. We are a reading family & if you ask me, you can never have too many books.
OTHER HOMESCHOOL ORGANIZATION IDEAS
It doesn’t have to take up too much space to gather and organize homeschool materials. I’ve seen families do without most supplies and adopt a Montessori or minimalist approach. Honestly, it really comes down to what fits your family needs and learning goals best and every family is different.
Some other homeschool organization ideas might include:
Under the couch storage
for games, puzzles and other learning resources. Our couches have room under them and I find it to be a practical space for storing things!
Go vertical
and mount some photo ledges, shelves and chalkboards on your walls near your homeschool seating area.
Utility closets
can be a great way to store materials of all kinds and have it out of sight when not in use. Use a door shoe holder to store craft supplies! I keep my printer, paper, acrylic paints and seasonal decorations stored in mine! I’ve shown it before on my Instagram and since then I was able to update to a new EPSON Printer!
Baskets
are a fun and decorative way to store books if you don’t have the space for bookcases or shelves. Store baskets of books all around the house and rotate the books every couple weeks so there’s something new to discover for your children! You can very easily find a variety of baskets at your local goodwill and spend less than a Starbucks drink for this organization hack. All of my baskets are from thrifting & usually are almost like new!
I hope this post inspires you to tackle your own homeschool organization, no matter the space you are given. Any nook and cranny can open up so many possibilities for practical, but also beautiful and unique homeschool organization.
If it doesn’t serve you well, I encourage you to not give up, and find a way that works for you and your children best. It doesn’t have to be “Instagram worthy” and it doesn’t have to be expensive. Shop your own home first. Is there a few baskets and bins you can free up to use? Wooden 2x4s laying around outside you can cut, sand and stain to make quick shelves? Can you reorganize an old bookcase and designate that as your homeschool storage? Possibilities are endless!
Places to shop fairly inexpensively could be IKEA, Hobby Lobby, and buy and sell groups around your area.
If you aren’t a DIY person, you can find inspiration on Pinterest. Draw it out, or write down a list of must haves for your organization and then make a plan to execute and most importantly, make it serve you!
