No school room? NO problem! Here are some fun organization tips for when you are homeschooling without a schoolroom.
Organizing your homeschool can be a challenge when you have limited space. While a dedicated homeschool room is great, not all families are in the position to have a space just for school. Organizing your homeschool when you don’t have a schoolroom can be a challenge. These tips will help you tame the chaos so you can get more done and enjoy your homeschool journey even with limited space.
Hidden storage
Take advantage of hidden storage in your home to help keep your homeschool supplies organized. From benches to ottomans with storage inside you can find a lot of great options to help get the clutter and mess of homeschooling up and out of view. Fabric storage drawers are great for placing items out of view on shelves. A dresser with decorations on top makes great storage along a wall to keep your school supplies out of sight. Sometimes all you need is a bit of creativity.
Baskets and totes
Organize everything into baskets and totes that allow you to take school anywhere. This method also allows you to store your school items anywhere that works for you. Organizing items into baskets and bins can even make it easy to organize supplies by child or subject making it easy to use appropriate areas of the home or store supplies in your children’s rooms when you are not working on school.
Go digital
One of the best ways to organize your homeschool when you do not have a space dedicated to homeschooling. Create a digital portfolio with photos and notes to track your child’s progress. You can use Microsoft Word or an app like Childfolio to create your own digital portfolio. This can reduce the amount of paper you need to keep for long periods of time while allowing you to add more detail to your child’s portfolio using photos of your child participating in activities or on field trips.
Your child’s portfolio is not the only place you can go digital to make it easier to organize your homeschool. You can find a lot of great books and textbooks in digital format for your family to use. You can use online programs as part of your curriculum greatly reducing the number of books and papers in your home.
Take advantage of your local library
While many of us would love to have a large home library it doesn’t work so well when you have limited space to store your homeschool supplies. Using your local library for books and other resources can greatly reduce the number of books you need in your home and help keep your homeschooling budget on track. Most libraries will order books you request allowing you to obtain books you need for planned lessons.
Declutter often
It’s not uncommon for homeschool families to try a program and decide it is not a good fit. Instead of collecting shelves of programs that do not work for you list these items for sale in used curriculum groups. The money you get back can be used to pay for something new to try.
These are just a few tips to help you organize your school space. You don’t need a homeschool room to homeschool, you just need great organization to contain all of that homeschool stuff!
PS: Head here for more organization tips and head over here to learn how to find a space for homeschooling.