As a classroom teacher, I always had so much “stuff” that I “needed” to teach. So, when we decided we were going to home school our children while living in an RV, I had to re-look at what I really “needed” to teach – and then I had to figure out where to put it!
First, what did I absolutely need? Books! Although we got rid of a few English books, we kept the majority of our kids’ English books and purchased additional French and Arabic kids’ books so that the kids would have a lot of options for quality reading materials – both fiction and non-fiction. Additionally, we purchased a Kindle Fire for our 2nd grader (the 5th grader already had one), so that he would have additional e-book options.
We store pleasure reading books under one side of the dinette and in the three drawers in the boys’ room.
Since we are homeschooling not only in English, but also in French & Arabic – languages that I am not a native speaker in, I felt it was very important to have curriculum books for this work. This helps me make sure I cover all of the right grammar rules and keep the kids practicing skills like reading the directions and using important vocabulary. (In English, the kids mainly use materials that I make and sell in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.) We keep these curriculum books in the boys’ “locker”, where they each have a shelf with their notebooks and textbooks.
Additionally, the boys have these white paper organizer totes that I picked up cheap at Target. My husband screwed these down to their table and the boys keep their current pleasure reading books, their kindles, cameras, and headphones (as well as other random “kid stuff”) in these white totes. After books, the next most important homeschooling supplies are office and art supplies like crayons, paint, scissors, pencils, etc. We keep these supplies organized in ziploc bags, which fit nicely into this single drawer. The drawer fits on the boys’ table in between their white book totes, and also provides them with a place to hold library books!
Rather than having a lot of manipulatives, we tend to use toys and games to help illustrate math concepts, and to allow our 3 year old to play with different concepts like taller and shorter or how many blocks long is that? We also use a bunch of food supplies for math manipulatives – for ideas about this check out my blog post: Math Manipulatives from Your Kitchen.
We keep the toys – wooden blocks, legos, soldiers, cars and marbles – in milk crates underneath our desk/table.
We keep puzzles and games – pattern blocks, scrabble, perfection, and a variety of board games – underneath the other side of the dinette.
The last element of our home school supplies is technology. As I already said, each of the big boys has their own kindle, which helps with reading, online research, watching their “listening videos” and the creation of some projects. For projects that require a PC, the boys share a laptop (and sometimes use mine).
Two random pieces of our organization process are: the boys laminated to-do lists, which hang on a bulletin board in their room, and the two kitchen timers that we use to set time limits on work – and play – time.
We are now officially finished with our first two months of homeschooling, and have really found the “swing of things”. We have changed our organization over the past two months, putting the items that get used regularly in more accessible places. Having these items organized makes the day go smoother and leads to more learning! For more information about our home school schedule and our home school curriculum, check out this post from the beginning of the school year.
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