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Ten Tips for Organizing Your Homeschool

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I’m one of those organizational planning types. I’m not necessarily the follow-through type, but that’s another post for another day. I’ve compiled 10 of my favorite posts with tips for organizing your homeschool from over the years.

We’re not necessarily still using all of these tips, but all have been instrumental in helping me stay organized, at one time or another, over the last ten years of homeschooling.

homeschool organization

1. Create a Mom Binder. I started my mom binder back when I was writing and planning my own unit studies. Since then it’s served as a home for my lesson plans, a place to store my weekly planner printouts, my prayer journal, and, now, more than anything else, my blog planning calendar.

Through all its changes, though, the central theme is that my mom binder has provided a place to store the stuff that I need to function well in my day-to-day life.

2. Finding creative spots to store your stuff. We homeschooling moms like to collect curriculum and school supplies. It can become overwhelming, so it’s very helpful to find creative ways to store your homeschool supplies so that you’re not in danger of being featured on something like Hoarders: The Homeschool Edition.

3. Use milk crates. A few years ago, I was using milk crates for our version of workboxes. I quit using them a few years ago because they didn’t really work well with what the kids were doing for school at that time.

workboxes_thumb

However, Brianna asked to start using them again this year when we moved away from Switched on Schoolhouse. She says that it helps her stay on track and keep focused on what she needs to do each day. Hey, it works for me!

4. Top Ten Uses for Index Cards. There are so many uses for index cards. I don’t think there is a day that goes by in our homeschool that we don’t use index cards in some form or fashion. This old, but still-relevant post shares some of our uses, past and present, for index cards.

5. Color Coordinating Supply Boxes. Depending on how many kids you have, this may not work for you, but it worked well for our three for a couple of years. We even had rulers, scissors, protractors and compasses to match!  Toss in character pencils in each person’s favorite (we had Spider Man, Pirates of the Caribbean and Barbie, if I recall correctly) and you always know whose stuff is whose.

supply boxes

6. Tips for prolonging the life of your homeschool texts. Let’s face it – if you have more than one child, you need for your homeschool books to last as long as possible so you can pass them down to the next kid. This post shares my favorite tip for helping your school books last longer.

7. Homeschool Scheduling and Planning. This is an older post that explains the method of lesson planning that I used for many years before Trail Guide came along and made my life so much easier. Still, it stood me in good steed for many years, so it might help you, too, if your current curriculum requires some lesson planning.

8. Grab-and-Go Bags. Having pre-stocked bags for certain types of outings can make getting out the door in a hurry without forgetting something much more doable. Find out what bags we keep stocked and ready to go.

9. Tips for Encouraging Independent Learning. I think, for all of us, one of our ultimate goals with homeschooling is to produce life-long leaners who know how to expand their knowledge base independently. This post shares simple tips for helping kids gain the confidence to take charge of their education.

10. Lesson Plans. Finally, just know that, no matter how well you plan, some days your lesson plans will look like mine did in this last post.

I hope you picked up some new tips that you can use. What are some of your best tips for organizing your homeschool?

This post is linked to Top Ten Tuesday.

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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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10 Comments

  1. This is such a great list (and links). I’m looking forward to taking the time to read all of them a little later. We are just starting our homeschooling journey. Still not “official” this year, but it will be official come spring.

  2. These are great Kris! I am just now FINALLY learning how to implement all my great organizational ideas – I’m a great organizer, but I stink at actually USING what I’ve organized 😀 HEE HEE Totally pinning this post!

  3. Great tips!! Even when my kids were in public school I used to color coordinate their stuff. Usually with their favorite color. For one than I knew what I had to buy from year to year and what child wasn’t bringing stuff back home. 🙂

  4. Oh good! I’m not the only one that LOVES making the plan but totally stinks in the follow through. Lightbulbs were lighting up when I read Cynthia Tobias’s “How They Learn”. All of them descirbe me. It at least helped me understand why I’m good at making the plan but not so good at sticking to it.

    Thanks for all the links, maybe I’ll find something to help me in my weak points!

  5. Great organizing tips.

    The best way is by having a vision that it can be done and by working with your own personality. The hardest part is starting up, but as time goes on, you’ll learn and get used to the things that needs to be done.

    Anne Gregor
    https://HomeschoolingOption.com/

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