Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Schooling in a Small Space

Many of you know that homeschooling and storing school supplies in a small space can be challenging.  When we first purchased our 1300 sq. ft. home (yes that's how "big" our house is) over 8 years ago, we had a one year old and another on the way...never anticipating we'd still be here, let alone homeschooling with 5 kids!  As a former classroom teacher and supervising teacher of homeschooled families, I  have become a curriculum addict over the years and love to test out new products.  Right before the baby was born, I started purchasing these nice little IKEA shelves.  We have this 4 x 2 in our hallway, another 4 x 2 in the kitchen and a 2 x2 next to our couch with books.  Then I found some cute little baskets at Target and recently, those nice brown storage crates at Target (see the bottom shelves).  These are my favorites as they are large enough to fit the shelves and are deep enough for binders and workbooks! 


This shelf is in the kitchen and replaced our iron wine table...Who has time for using a wine table with 5 kids?
If I didn't have a toddler, I could also use those large storage crates for kitchen items.


These are one of my favorite organizational ideas...Trader Joe's coffee cans.  My daughter loves to cover them in paper and label them.  They are the perfect size for pencils and most of the time you can even fit the lid on top.


This is the basket on the kitchen shelf.  We are currently using this one for pencils, rulers, etc.

7 comments:

  1. Fantastic organizing. I LOVE projects like this & when they have such a great purpose- it really makes me excited! Great job!

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  2. yes, i'm learning how fast the homeschool area can become a disaster area! great ideas to stay organized!!

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  3. Very nice way to organize some unwieldy items.

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  4. I try...using the one big kitchen cupboad I have for curriculum wasn't working for us anymore. This has also kept the kids more organized as our shelves have cubbies for each of their baskets with the essentials (math, handwriting and language arts) and the other cubbies are organized by subject.

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  5. Awesome storage ideas! I know all about homeschooling in a small space with a large fam! I agree that organization is the key.
    (not sure about getting rid of the wine table though :)

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  6. Thanks for visiting me from the HHH! Could you please come organize my house like this? LOL We also live in a small home about the size of yours. When we bought we only had one child and didn't think we'd be blessed with more. Now we have two and things are cluttered terribly (doesn't help that we majorly love books!). We don't have an IKEA anywhere nearby (I will admit to never even having been to one), but I will definitely have to scope out the Target stores here for the baskets and storage crates.

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  7. Flmom...these shelves are also on Ikea's website.

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