Homeschool Organization Tips

“A place for everything, and everything in it’s place.”

Having a place for all the things in your homeschool room is so helpful because you don’t have to spend a lot of time finding things or putting them away. You always know where everything is located.

I’ve always loved organizing things. I love even more finding organizational tools. So I’ve rounded up some of my favorite organizational pieces and my tips on how to organize all the homeschool supplies.

Take Inventory

Gather all your resources and supplies you will be using in your homeschool room. I like to separate like minded things. This year I divided our resources into categories: math, language arts, handicrafts, and nature.

Once you have your items separated you can easily see what needs to be placed in a container/ box or what can stay out. I keep larger resources out and displayed on a shelf and keep smaller items in containers.

Picking The Right Organization Pieces

Now is the time you can decide what size organizational pieces you will need. I like to write down all of my needs and then look online at my favorite organization stores to see what’s available. My favorite places are The Container Store, Hobby Lobby, Ikea, Target, and Amazon. I love finding pieces the are practical but also pretty. Our homeschool room doesn’t have a door and we have open shelves. So I like things to be aesthetically pleasing since it is all on display.

All The Small Things

If you have some smaller things like manipulatives you can decide how you would like to store them. I love jars with lids for smaller items so I can see what’s inside and also keep them secured. You can also use baskets, bags, or other containers. These reusable bags are perfect for sensory items like rice and beans.

I just love these glass jars with bamboo lids I found from Amazon. In them holds our number and alphabet coins that go with our hundred frame board from Treasures From Jennifer. And to maximize my space I got this bamboo shelf to be able to stack the jars.

I found the cutest jars with wooden lids and spoons from Hobby Lobby to store some small wooden and felt balls. The spoons are a perfect size to scoop out the balls.

I love having different textures on my bookcases and the look of baskets on a shelf. This little basket holds larger felt balls. I think it adds some warmth to the space.

We love Oui yogurt because it’s delicious but also because we like to save the little glass jars! These are perfect for storing small manipulatives. The wooden tray they are sitting in is the lid from this bamboo box from Ikea.

This 3-tiered tray from Hobby Lobby is perfect for holding our math manipulatives. The wooden divided tray stores wooden loose parts. The tray came with a glass lid but it broke so I removed it.

Art Supplies

Art supplies are probably one of the most fun things to organize in my opinion. I typically use various sizes of buckets and containers to store them.

For watercolor paints and supplies I love these galvanized pieces from Hobby Lobby.

Galvanized Double Bucket

Galvanized Metal Bucket

Galvanized Square Box

I like to place everyday art supplies in containers that can easily be transported anywhere. I use this galvanized chicken wire container from Hobby Lobby to separate crayons by color. It is no longer available but this is a similar idea.

This wooden toolbox is perfect to keep smaller buckets to hold colored pencils, paint sticks, markers, and dotters. I’ve had it for years but I found a link for a set of 3 here.

Storage with small drawers are perfect for coloring books or paper, and even a package of these paint sticks. I found this adorable drawer set from Decor Steals.

For polymer clay storage I love this plastic divider to separate all of the colors.

Handicrafts

We do a lot of handicrafts and need a lot of storage. I mostly use boxes for smaller supplies like embroidery floss and things.

This bamboo box from Ikea holds some smaller handicrafts, needles, and supplies.

These wooden boxes are perfect for holding embroidery floss.

Baskets are perfect for yarn and embroidery hoops. I love this wire basket from Hobby Lobby because I can still see the beautiful colors of yarn through it. I used another basket to hold some of our embroidery projects we’re working on or have already completed. I can’t find the exact basket I have but here is a similar set. You can buy them separately in store.

I love this galvanized divider for storing wool roving by color. It’s practical and pretty to look at.

This photo storage box from The Container Store holds some extra wool roving and all of our needle felting supplies.

This box from Target holds some felt pieces and fabric for sewing and embroidery projects. This particular box is no longer available but here is a similar option.

Flash Cards

We use a lot of flash cards and other small printable resources for nature studies, math, and language arts.

For our nature card printables I store them in these photo storage boxes from The Container Store. Each topic is separated by dividers. These boxes also come with the dividers. I have a whole blog post on how I store these.

I also use the photo storage boxes for storing some math and language arts flash cards and other small resources and games.

These bamboo boxes from Ikea are the perfect size for our multiplication/ division cards and addition/ subtraction cards. I also added these repositionable tabs for easy access. Here is a link for the smaller tabs.

For smaller flash cards I love these galvanized oval containers from Hobby Lobby.

This is a great piece if you want to display some larger flash cards.

Books, Workbooks, & Student Sheets

I like to keep each of my girls workbooks together for them to have easy access.

This year we’re using magazine holders to store math and language arts workbooks. My girls each have one. I also got one for myself to hold all of my teachers manuals.

We’re using our 3-tiered cart, or I should say 2-tiered cart to hold the magazine holders, Juniper Grove journals, and flash card boxes.

The Juniper Grove journals have 3 small notebooks inside. One for spelling, one for science, and one for nature studies. I love having them all together in one place instead of a bunch of bulky notebooks.

Our curriculum has loose student sheets each week. So I divided them by week in this file folder box from The Container Store.

I keep the larger books we will be using for school this year separated by subjects on a shelf. Some of the smaller books and read alouds I keep in a basket. Here is a similar set of seagrass baskets.

Nature and Science

We have a lot of nature treasures and resources. Trying to find spots for all the tiny things can be a bit challenging.

For the longest time I’ve been using this old Melissa and Doug car box to hold our treasures. It works great! But I was running out of room! I’ve been searching for one of these vintage printers trays forever. I finally found one local to me on Facebook marketplace. It’s fairly shallow though so it doesn’t hold too much. But I just love the texture it adds to our wall! And these tiny jars are perfect for tiny nature treasures!

We still use the old wooden divided container for nature treasures too. But now at least they all fit. I also like to store small gems in a glass jar.

We love these Science Wiz kits! I took them out of the boxes and placed all of the supplies and books in this seagrass basket with a lid. Here is a similar basket set.

Finding the Perfect Spot

Once you have all of your organizational pieces you can start putting things away. This is the fun part to me! I love arranging and rearranging my shelves until I find the best set up. I couldn’t even tell you how many times I rearranged my shelves this year. It was a lot! But I think I finally found what will work best for us.

In years past I just had resources and supplies anywhere I could fit on my bookcases. But I found it wasn’t working for us. So this year I separated all of our resources into categories: math, language arts, handicrafts, and nature.

While you’re placing everything keep in mind what you want to be accessible to your children. You may have younger children and not want to have certain things on their level. When my girls were younger I kept any scissors and markers and things on higher shelves.

I recommend placing resources you use frequently on lower shelves for your children to access. A lot of the math resources we use were on higher shelves and my daughters couldn’t reach them easily. So I placed things that my girls use often on lower shelves. We haven’t started school yet this year but my girls have already been playing with some of the resources. They told me they love it so much more now that they can reach.

The most important thing is to make it work for you and your family. You may find after a few weeks or months something’s not working and you can change it up. That also goes for curriculum, but that’s a post for another day!

I hope these tips and links help in your organizing journey! If you have any questions or maybe want some advice on where to put things in your room I’d love to help! Also, let me know if there are any additional links you would like. I have most of our furniture and decor linked on my Homeschool Room Tour blog post.