Homeschool Organization: School Supplies

Friday afternoon I gathered all of the stuff that Leah had brought into the kitchen over the last few months as part of her office. Paper, coloring books, markers, crayons, colored pencils, glue, scissors, stickers, notebooks, journals and various other items filled a little end table beside my kitchen rocking chair. The overflow covered one end of our kitchen table, and many of her supplies were strewn on the kitchen floor.

So I put it all in one big laundry basket.

Leah's office

Saturday morning I took that basket downstairs to my schoolroom, and got to work on our school supplies. I began by noting that we had way too many!! In fact, I recently bought more school supplies during my monthly trip to Walmart.

sacks of school supplies

I love school supplies, and this time of year when they put everything on sale for such a low price, I have a hard time resisting! I did need glue, glue sticks, and pencils. I did not need markers, crayons, notebook paper, or folders (which I bought anyway because of the low, low price). I actually didn't realize that I didn't need those items until I began cleaning out and organizing my school supplies.

I think I found 1000 markers!

We had markers in the kitchen (Leah's office), markers on the kitchen table (in a silverware caddy), markers in individual boxes stored in the den for our daily Bible lessons, markers in individual boxes on the schoolroom shelves, markers in the children's work buckets, and unopened markers in my supply cabinet in the schoolroom.

I dumped all of the markers on my schoolroom table (except for the unopened boxes) and one by one I tried them. Yes I did. I threw the dried up ones and the ones with smashed tips away, and the rest I sorted. I made a set of one of each color for each child's work bucket (in a school supply box), I put two of each color in the silverware caddy on the schoolroom table, I put two of each color in a bag along with a couple of spiral notebooks and a word search book in a bag inside the van (for times when we have to wait somewhere), and the rest of the markers filled a shoe box sized plastic container! I plan to take that box of markers to Granmomma's house to be enjoyed by all of the grandchildren.

My schoolroom shelves...before I started cleaning out. Most of those clear boxes with green lids contained markers! The two pink lidded boxes contained markers and crayons too. I removed all of the books (curriculum for next year) from the top of the shorter shelf, and I took out the green crates. I plan to take down that poster, and use that wall (now without the green crates) for Sam to count the 100 days of school this year. We put up an index card with a number for each school day, up until 100.

This is my table where I sorted everything out.

I hadn't dumped out the markers yet!

I drank 3 cups of coffee (see my Starbucks mug) while I did this!

Next, I tackled the crayons.....I only kept the crayons that were in packages. I stored all crayons in my school supply cabinet. I plan to purchase a set of Twist Up crayons for Leah and Sam to use for their schoolwork. Leah has had a set of Twist Up crayons that she uses during our church service for 3 years now. Three years. Those are good crayons!

Colored pencils were gathered and sorted next. I made a set (one of each color) for each of the children to use during our daily Bible lesson. I stored them in boxes with their names on them in the kitchen--in the little end table that formerly was Leah's office. I also had enough colored pencils to make a set for the four older children for their school supply box inside their work buckets. The leftover colored pencils fit nicely inside one plastic cup in the school supply cabinet.

the top section of the school supply cabinet

The top shelf has rarely used items (gel pens, crayons, boxes of markers, foam stickers, and those wonderful Hamma beads.)

The middle shelf stores folders, spiral notebooks, notebook paper, composition books, stationery, and the children's art binders.

The bottom shelf has labeled cups that store two sizes of scissors, colored pencils, specialty markers, rulers, and extra pencils. The clear containers hold glue, jumbo poster markers, clothespins, erasers, compasses, index cards, etc.

The bottom section of this cabinet holds paper. I put one color of copy paper in each section along with notebook paper, one tray of construction paper, decorative copy paper, and stencils. Since taking this picture yesterday, I have purchased a few colors of paper that we were missing.

To finish the organization of the school supplies, I made a list of a few (really just a few) items that we were lacking, and then filled a school supply box for each child to keep in their work buckets. Each box contains scissors, markers, crayons or colored pencils, regular pencils, and a compass and protractor for the older children.

Next project: sorting and storing last year's schoolwork, followed by planning for the upcoming year.