Getting organised!

 We're naturally really, seriously disorganised people!


But with a revolving cast of 3-5 kids around the place, a class of 20-something eight year olds to manage, and all my crafty ventures, being disorganised just was NOT going to work with home schooling!

So I dragged out all our vaguely school related supplies -

 and arranged them into....

generic stationery (pens, rulers, tape, glue, staplers etc), painting, and other art mediums-

(I emptied the dregs of the big paint bottles into smaller squeezy ones, and recycled the empty bottles into containers for our crayons, pencils & pens, they're a fantastic size for that)

folders and notebooks, exercise books, and printer paper & canvases - 

science kits, our discovery chest, maths games & manipulatives, things to keep the little one amused, collage stuff, and kid's craft supplies -

which mostly turned into this, our school cupboard - 

And as for actual work material, we have our rainbow tower-

which currently has another 5 drawers as yet unassigned (but mysteriously full of assorted pieces of kid-paper!). On the top is the cutlery caddy I bought for holding writing & colouring pencils. I used a piece of cardboard to make a little removable cup to fit in one slot, for catching pencil sharpenings, and hot-glued a pencil sharpener onto a piece of string to tie onto the caddy!

For a schedule, I was inspired by this chore chart (which I saw on Pinterest, but can't find the pin!). Ours is just a laminated sheet of paper taped to the fridge, but it's sufficiently pretty to keep our six year old happy!

I found some round, self-adhesive magnets, and printed out little pictures of everything that I could think of that Lexi might do in a day, including a few just fun things!

Thus far we have- maths, handwriting, poetry, art, storytime with me, cooking/baking, crafts, walk/outing, swimming, puzzles, gardening, writing, independent reading, Lego Quest, St John's Penguins, discovery chest, social studies, Intrepica, and science.

No doubt I'll add more as we go, but as we are just easing into our new rhythm at the moment, I think that is more than enough!

This system is good because it gives Lexi a clear idea of what is expected that day, she can 'tick off' completed activities, and it even gives her a lot of freedom to choose what she would like to tackle throughout the day!

So I think that I have most of our HE stuff sufficiently organised, if only the rest of the house was that way....