The Organized Homeschool Challenge: What to do with ALL that curriculum!
The Organized Homeschool Challenge is coming along! If you aren’t following along on Facebook, you should be! Some of my wonderful readers have shared pictures of their progress, and tips to help you get your home ready for school so we can kick this school year off right!
This week, I tackled my curriculum stash. I have tons of stuff. My kids are working on Kindergarten and Third grade materials now, which means I have a crazy amount of materials for Preschool to Third grade, and then a decent amount of materials for older grades. Some stuff I have either bought thinking it would be the right level, and decided to wait until later to use. Every once in a while I find used materials I am interested in for a crazy good price and couldn’t pass it up. I also have some near and dear friends who pass curriculum down to me. Basically, I have WAY too much curriculum, and I really needed to go through it, clean it up, and get it organized before it took over my whole house.
As I was organizing, I realized I had forgotten about some of the goodies I had and wanted to use (like a Latin for Children DVD I could add into the mix) and other materials that I now know I don’t want to use (a couple levels of Saxon Math I no longer want to look at. Ever. LOL). Here is how I ended up Organizing everything:
I sorted through everything and divided it into piles by grade level, thinking it would be easy next year to grab the box for the next grade and see what materials I already have for each child. I also have a box of Literature Units (because we just do them as we are interested instead of by grade level), Unit Studies (this is where I stuck my teachers material for things like Bugs, and Road Trip USA) and Science Units (experiments and other fun things).
I realized gallon ziplocks were the perfect size for our Lit studies and other unit studies. They fit my TOPS units, Moving Beyond the Page units, and other books really well. I stuck the assigned reading (if there was any) and other supplemental resources like reusable printables in the bag too. They are vertical in the box so when I want to grab a new unit, I can flip through what I have quickly, and know everything I need is in the bag. If there was something I needed to add, or a book I didn’t want to pull out of the library, I added a note on a sticky note on the cover of the book to see at a glance that something was missing from my ready-to-go packs.
Science units and experiments all went into gallon (and a couple two gallon) sized ziplock bags and are also stored vertically in the box. This bag has our chemistry book, and supplies needed to do the experiments. It’s all there and ready to go so I don’t have to look for supplies. I took a little extra time to look over the books and added things like rubber bands and paper plates now, so I wouldn’t have to find ANYTHING when we wanted to actually do the experiments. I’m being proactive now so we can have more hands on, stress free science this school year. I figure these things don’t need to be out on our Homeschool Command Center now, but I can grab one bag at a time to stick in the basket each week so we have something fun to do.
The stuff I pulled out of my stash because I am 99.9 percent sure I won’t use it landed itself in a giant box to be sold or donated. I probably have a good 20 books to sell, but if it doesn’t interest me, I don’t need to keep it around. Besides, I can use the pocket change to buy more curriculum!
Now, It’s your turn!
1. Gather all your extra curriculum together (basically, anything that doesn’t belong in your homeschool command center, or in the family library) 2. Sort it in a way that makes sense to you. You can do it by grade level, by subject, or in some other way
3. As you sort weed out items you don’t need, don’t want, are wore out, or are too incomplete to use, set them aside to be sold, donated, or replaced
4. Find a way to store your books- use tupperware, bankers boxes, ziplock bags- anything that keeps the books together and out of the way. If you don’t need it right now, it can be stored!
5. Keep supplemental items together! Pack experiment books with supplies, and literature units with books. Store things so they are easy to grab and go later
6. Use my free printable labels to make it pretty, and organized!
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Download: Curriculum Storage Labels from Only Passionate Curiosity Homeschool
Join us next week!
And see how I deal with the toys and math manipulatives that have taken over my living room.
Read the rest of this series!
We are finishing our 9th year of homeschooling, so we have lots of books. I really like the your method of storage for books that aren’t currently being used. We have great bookshelves, but after 9 years, and knowing that we will likely use them again, I need a better storage system! Thanks for sharing yours.
I would really like to download the labels, but the link won’t work. Are the labels still available?
Hi Amanda! These were from a couple years ago, and I am working on locating the original file so I can get them into the new store system 🙂 Hopefully I can find the harddrive I stored them on soon, our move last year was not kind on my sense of organization. Sorry about the delay- I’ll try and email you as soon as I locate them.
Thank you!
Where are the posts beyond week 4? And why don’t the links work?
The links work, the image is just no longer there. It needs updated. You can click on the blue text links below each one. There is no post after 4, because it was a 4 week long series, just for the month.
Have a good day!
OMGsh, how have I missed this series. This post alone has inspired me to get my stashed curriculum, and heaven alone knows what else, out of the garage and get a proper sorting and storage system going. I’m off to go see what everyone else is up to.
Terrific tips!!
I am beginning my 9th yer of HSing in a few weeks and yes, even someone with a ton of years’ experience drowns in curriculum and could use a few really good pieces of advice!My Hs room is pretty well set…not to sort and organize materials for this coming year! Great ideas.
Thanks you