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The back-to-school season is an exciting time filled with new opportunities and experiences. However, it can also be a stressful period for both parents and kids as everyone adjusts to new routines. One of the best ways to ease this transition is by organizing your home to create an environment that works with your new schedule. Here are some practical home organization tips to help your family get ready for the school year.
1. Create a Dedicated Study Space
Part of back to school organization is creating a dedicated study space that helps kids focus on their schoolwork without distractions. Here’s how to set one up:
Choose the Right Spot: Select a quiet area in your home, preferably away from high-traffic zones like the living room or kitchen. Make sure your child has a place to sit an a flat survace to work on...whether it's a desk or a small table, make sure they feel like this is a space just for them to focus on schoolwork!
Organized Supplies: Keep all necessary supplies like pencils, pens, notebooks, and other study materials within easy reach. Whether you have a cabinet, a desk or just a drawer, kids do better when they know where to find everything. One of our favorite organizers is this set of drawer organizers which can be mixed and matched to fit any size cabinet, drawer, or even on an art cart.
We love this art cart and this drawer divider set to organize school supplies!
2. Establish a Morning Routine
Mornings can be chaotic, but having a well-planned routine can make a big difference.
Prepare the Night Before: Lay out clothes, pack lunches, and ensure backpacks are ready to go. This reduces the morning craziness!
Set a Schedule: Create a morning schedule that includes time for breakfast, getting dressed, and any other necessary tasks. This is especially helpful for younger kids...consistency helps everyone know what to expect!
Have a Snack and Lunch zone in the pantry: As kids get older and can start packing their own lunches, it is helpful to have a space dedicated to easy to grab snacks and lunch items. Whether it is a bin in the pantry or a designated drawer, choose a spot that is easy for kids to access.
Decanting containers for snacks and breakfast items (top row)
Our favorite Home Edit snack bins (bottom row)
3. Organize the Entryway
The entryway is the first and last place your family sees each day, so keeping it organized is essential for streamlining your family's daily routines.
Command Center: Create a command center with a calendar, bulletin board, and a place for important papers. This helps keep track of school events, appointments, and other activities. Posting a family calendar is a great way to help keep everyone on the same page and see what the week looks like at a glance. We love this large whiteboard calendar that can easily be hung on a wall or a refridgerator.
Hooks and Cubbies: Install hooks for backpacks and coats at a height children can reach. Cubbies or bins can be used to store shoes, hats, and other accessories. Even if you don't have a huge mudroom, you can use vertical space to keep items off the ground. We love these Target baskets and these Container Store baskets for holding shoes, hats, mittens, and other cold weather items.
Always measure first to ensure the baskets or bins you use work for your space!
4. Have a drop zone for school paperwork
We all know how much paperwork can come home with kids each day! From school assignments, forms to sign, and works of art that you just can't part with, it all adds up. A drop zone for these items is important to keep it from piling up. Here are 2 ideas we often implement in clients' homes for these items:
Magazine Files or bins to hold items: When kids arrive home from school, try to establish a routine where they unload their backpacks and place all schoolwork, forms and papers into a designated bin or file folder (we recommend one per child). These are the papers you will deal with later, possibly after dinner or when kids have gone to bed, but they aren't taking up space on your counter or getting lost in the mix of other items in there. We love these file folders that fit nicely in a cabinet or on a counter, and these simple bins to hold paperwork in a drawer or cabinet.
A Memory Bin for papers you want to keep: This is where you file away the memories...the items you DO want to keep. We recommend a storage box with a file folder labled for each grade of your child's life (K-12). We all love to look back at things our kids wrote or created at certain points in their life. Having a dedicated space to store these items helps prevent paper clutter in other areas of your house. My kids love to go through their memory bins periodically and it's a fun way to coral all those school memories. You can create your own memory bin with a few simple items. We love these file boxes paired with these file folders...it doesn't have to be complicated!
5. Reset your kids' closet for school year success
The transition from summer to the start of school is the perfect time to reset your kids' closet space. A well-organized closet can make mornings less stressful and help your children develop good habits.
Declutter first: The most difficult step in closet organization is assessing what needs to stay and what needs to go, but this is THE most important step. Take everything, and we mean everything out and start categorizeing. Create piles of items to donate, toss and keep. Once you've done this, creating a system is much easier.
Set up the closet in a way that helps your kids get dressed daily: Sort clothes into categories such as shirts, pants, dresses, and outerwear. This makes it easier to find specific items. If your child wears a uniform, keep those items together for quick access.
Invest in storage solutions that maximize space and keep the closet tidy. We love to use a mix of bins and bakets to hold categories of clothing (don't forget to label!) so that kids can easily find what they are looking for. These felt bins from Target hold lots of clothes such as athletic clothes, pajamas, and T-shirts and these lined baskets are perfect for more delicate items such as swimsuits, underwear and smaller accessories.
Conclusion
By taking the time to organize your home and establish routines, you can create a supportive environment that helps your children thrive during the school year. Remember, the goal is to make the transition as smooth as possible, so don’t be afraid to adjust these tips to fit your family’s unique needs. Here’s to a successful and stress-free back-to-school season!
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