Summer always comes and goes in a blink of an eye. For many families, going back to school and getting into the routine can take a few weeks, if not months! Summer items need to be put away and stored to make room for studying and homework or extra-curricular activities. This can lead to a pretty hectic time. One way to make the transition back to school as easy as possible is to take the time to clean, declutter, and store excess belongings. For help maximizing your child’s return to education, here are eight ways to get organized for school at home.
How to Prepare for an Organized School Year
Back to school shopping for supplies, clothes, and any other necessary products is a fun and exciting time. It marks a fresh start for students and gives parents a chance to set their children up for success. However, whether you purchase new school-related items or not, making room for education is important. Getting organized is the key to creating a stress-free year. Some ways to do this are as follows.
1. Develop a Routine
Before you do anything, you need to organize your schedules. This begins with developing a back-to-school routine. It’s time to make the transition from sleeping in, to early mornings and care-free picnics to packed lunches. So, before the school year starts, try to ease your children back into the routine to avoid shocking their system during those first few weeks. This will help avoid any issues with tardiness or resentment once school kicks off.
2. Create a Shared Calendar
Another way to organize your schedules is to create a shared calendar that’s displayed in a common area of your home. You should color code it for each member of your family and consider using special symbols for different activities (i.e., virtual classroom time, sports, clubs, playdates). Put two up next to each other—one with an overview of the month and any big events and one that can be updated with specifics for each week. If your children are older, give them the responsibility of updating their own schedules so that everyone in the family knows what’s going on throughout the week.
3. Optimize Layout and Storage for School Schedules
Next, go through your home and reassess your current layout. Does your child spend too much time in a playroom or in front of the TV and not enough time at a desk? If so, it’s time to make some changes that help support a healthy learning environment. Mudrooms, playrooms, or entertainment rooms can be re-assessed to remove clutter and reduce distractions. This should include putting any unnecessary items away into storage—especially things like beach toys or summer athletic equipment that won’t be used during the school year. You should also store any summer toys, clothing, or other accessories that add clutter to your home.
4. Organize Areas of Your Home for Convenience
During this step, take the time to organize various areas of your home for optimal school-related convenience. If you have a mudroom or a foyer where everyone leaves the house and enters, create stations for each child that contain everything they need for the school day. When they come home, they can put their backpacks on the hook and leave anything they need for the next day in their station. In the mornings, put their lunchboxes in their respective areas. This can help improve the efficiency of your routine and decrease the likelihood that someone forgets something. You may also want to go through your pantry and reorganize it so that healthy snacks and easy grab and go items are accessible to your children.
If you’ll need a caregiver or babysitter for after-school hours, be proactive and make it easy for them. Make sure everything is easy to find and accessible, especially in regard to snacks, chargers, emergency phone numbers, and even pet leashes. Whatever you can do to make things easier during the school year time is recommended.
5. Get Organization Supplies
Some people have a natural inclination to stay organized, but most people need a little help. Luckily, there are hundreds of products and supplies designed to help you get the most out of your organization efforts. Some of which are even tailored towards school. Some of the best supplies for improving your child’s organization for school at home include a planner, a multi-pocket backpack, notebooks, a pencil pouch, and an accordion. Depending on the age of your child, you may want to help them get introduced to the concept of planning by scheduling fun activities in addition to study or school time. You can also use a color-coded system to help make the entire process more visually stimulating.
6. Add Workstations to Rooms
To supplement in-school education, it’s important that your child has an area that’s conducive to at-home learning or studying. To do this, consider adding workstations to their rooms or transforming the playroom into an at-home library during the school year. You don’t have to completely remove everything, but putting a few larger play items into storage will allow you to set up workstations that support your child’s education. Keep any books or other toys that have educational aspects in the playroom, but put excess items away in storage. You may want to create an easily accessible box that can be brought back during the weekends or holidays or leave a few of your child’s favorite things in the room. Don’t completely deprive them of having fun, but don’t make it hard to focus on their schoolwork either. If you have the space, create a separate room for workstations or clear out an area in your basement. This allows them to compartmentalize when it’s time to work and when it’s time to play.
7. Include a Homework Caddy
A homework caddy is a great DIY organization option that can help keep your child’s desk or workstation free of clutter. All you need are a few empty cartons or boxes of varying sizes, toilet paper rolls, and some duct tape. You can create whatever shape or size homework caddy you’d like, but include enough areas to hold everything that your child will need to do their homework without distraction. This should include an area for pens and markers, paper, tape, glue, notebooks, sticky notes, etc. Some great inspiration and a set of easy-to-follow instructions can be found here.
8. Remove Distractions
Finally, go around your home and remove any distractions from each room. This could include everything from decorative clutter to gaming systems. The point is, the more items that are in a room, the easier it is for your child to get distracted. Creating a more minimalistic feel can help them get the most out of their studying and make cleaning and day-to-day organization easier for you. To keep your things accessible and in good condition, rent a self-storage unit that’s equipped with climate control.
Staying organized at home is a great way to support your child’s education. It can help remove distractions and provide more structure in their lives, which is essential for navigating busy schedules and a list of homework. While it might take some getting used to, staying organized for school at home is possible using the right approach. To help make things even easier, utilize a self-storage unit to keep distractions at bay. A self-storage unit is a great way to compartmentalize your extra things while keeping your home and your child’s supplemental learning space clean and clutter free. The Lock Up Self Storage offers temperature and climate-controlled self-storage units of varying sizes to meet everyone’s storage needs and budgets without jeopardizing the safety of your belongings. By finding a local self-storage unit, you can put away things that may be distracting to your child during the week, but remain easily accessible so you can pick them up when needed. Using a self-storage unit will help you declutter and organize your life, making space for things to be properly stored, used, and put back away in your home. For a self-storage company that you can trust, head over to The Lock Up Self Storage today. All of our self-storage units are temperature controlled and 100% secured so you can be assured that your things are safe and well taken care of. To learn more about our available units near you, or to talk to a representative our flexible leasing options, give us a call at (866) 327-LOCK today.
