Homeschool Supplies

When I thought about homeschooling I forgot about setting up a space to keep the supplies. I had thought I could just keep them with my craft stuff, but that turned out not to work. When I wanted something for Drew to do I had to go hunt my my craft room, and by the time I found his stuff he was over wanting to do it. So, I cleaned out a section of our kitchen cabinets that we weren't really using and moved his stuff in. This has worked so much better, especially since it is right next to our eat-in table.

We have Crayola Colors 24 Piece Puzzles for different weeks colors. I got them from Wal-Mart in the dollar bin. They have 24 pieces, which works well right now. I wish they had had the yellow one when I was buying mine, but they were all out. I like these puzzles because they have lots of objects of that color for us to talk about, and isn't just a picture.

The boxes are from Ikea and fit in the cabinet fairly well, but they have to be turned long way. If we keep the boxes in the kitchen I will probably go back and get another color so the orange doesn't stand out as much. But for now they are working great at corralling the little supplies.

In this box we have stickers, foam letters, foam sheets, glue sticks, bath crayons, and laminated Bible verse cards. A bit of a hodgepodge, but since most of the things are stickers it works.

The other box has our Crayola Washable Watercolors , Crayola Washable Crayons , Crayola Washable Markers , poster paints, stapler, and Crayola Washable Kid's Paint . These are the supplies I was always having to hunt for and now that they are in the same box I can make a quick grab for the one I think will be the least mess that day. Huge word of advice, buy the WASHABLE version of Crayola supplies. They are slightly more expensive, but the clean up is so much easier and will keep you from pulling your hair out. You will notice a box of non Crayola markers in the box, I used them once and they were hard to clean up and I haven't used them since. The poster paint is non Crayola washable, but sometimes I just need a good poster paint.

We have our books of the week in here, too. That way I always know where they are and I can pull them out. I was keeping them on the counter and one had an accident with Drew. Thankfully, the library has a policy that as long as the page wasn't torn out it isn't "damaged". But, we will be keeping library books up in the cabinet for a while. We also have our collection of play-doh on this shelf. I like the box we got at Wal-Mart. There are 16 little sticks in the box and covers all the basic colors.

Our Fisher-Price Brilliant Basics Baby's First Blocks is on the shelf, too. I love this sorter! A friend gave it to Drew for his first birthday, and it is great. I keep it up on the shelf so that when I need it all the pieces are together. We are missing one of the blue circles, but that is ok, I will find it one day.

For Drew's first Christmas I made him a set of cloth letters. Since the curriculum we are using does a group of letters at a time, I just have these pulled out. The others are mixed into his toys.

I also have a binder to keep all the lesson plans. I was trying to keep them loose and that was failing horribly. I have the summary for the year printed out and put in the front pocket with the laminated scripture verse of the week. Then I have the weekly plans with sheet protector dividers to hold that week's coloring sheets and complicated crafts. I also have a tab to keep track of the full list of lesson plans in the back that tells me more than the basic spreadsheet in the front does.

Example of everything for one craft in a sheet protector.

So far this system is working well for us. There are supplies that are still in my craft room like my card stock (not the cheapest option, but I already have it and so I am using that instead of construction paper), my printer, my silhouette, and lamination machine. Most of these things are too big for the cabinet, and where they are is convenient for when I am working at my desk getting things ready for the week.