If you scroll through Pinterest or Instagram, you are guaranteed to find beautiful pictures of school rooms and organizational tools that make you swoon. The stunning photos may give the impression that having an elaborate homeschool set up will make you into the best homeschool parent and mold your children into the smartest, most well rounded students.
I am here to tell you that you don’t have to have the biggest, prettiest, best decorated, perfect schoolroom in order to be successful as a homeschool family.
How I Downsized My Homeschool
After a recent move into a new home, I now have a smaller area for school stuff. Because of the smaller space, when I was packing to move, I decided to downsize and simplify our school materials.
I admit it was hard for me to downsize because I love all-the-things when it comes to school supplies, curriculum, books, maps, and manipulatives. But I took the plunge towards minimalism and created a simpler homeschool environment that beautifully fits in our new home. Despite the smaller space, I’ve not sacrificed any usefulness! Here’s a walk-through of how I’ve organized our homeschool materials for a much simpler set-up in our smaller area.
Closet and Dining Area Storage
Since we now have a smaller space, I turned one of our closets into homeschool storage and use a small portion of our dining area to organize more resources.
I added wheeled, 3-tiered metal carts to hold what we are currently using each week. I love having the flexibility of a mobile cart to organize and transport what we need. It’s easy to roll the carts wherever we want to do school that day: on the couch, at the table, or in the yard.
Book Storage Tips
Homeschooling all four of my children, I find it most helpful to keep all of our books in perfect order by using Sonlight’s book labels and placing each level on a separate shelf. Organizing my Sonlight material this way saves me time and improves the chances that our books don’t get lost.
I have organized our Sonlight books according to level, but our science, math, language arts, art extras, coloring books, and supplemental workbooks are stored in colored bins on the shelf in our homeschool closet for ease of access.
I have found it extremely helpful to have our extras separated by subject and contained in one place so we can just grab the bin we need when it is time to use them. There’s no searching; it’s all together.
36-Week File Folder System
One helpful organization tool I started years ago is a set of file folders, numbered 1-36 for each child. The numbers correspond with the 36 weeks of a school year. Since my Sonlight curriculum is also divided into 36 weeks, it’s super easy to collate everything for each week into the folders:
- math worksheets
- Language Arts Activity Sheets
- Science Activity Sheets
- handwriting pages
- vocabulary pages
- assignment sheets
Each day we grab our weekly folder along with all our Sonlight resources and get to work. This system helps our days and weeks run without a hitch.
The longer I have homeschooled the more I realize that the fewer resources to keep organized the better. My kids really don’t care if I have an entire, beautifully decorated room, dedicated solely to homeschooling.
They enjoy the spontaneous schoolroom approach far more than sitting in one room all day: on the couch, in a tree, or on the floor. I know this year’s simple setup is going to please everyone and allow for a successful homeschool year.
Give yourself a head-start each week with an open-and-go curriculum that’s fully planned. Sonlight simplifies your entire homeschool process and makes it easy to stay organized! See how here.
Katy Crisp is a follower of Christ, a wife and ministry partner, a homeschool mom to four children, a coffee enthusiast, and an animal lover. She has a desire and passion to encourage women in their walk with the Lord as they manage home and family, offering ways to find strength and beauty in the ins-and-outs of daily life at home. She uses her blog Homefront Lilies and social media to encourage and connect with others.