Teachers and students of all ages can benefit from getting organized during their school breaks. It matters not whether it is summer, holiday, or even a weekend. Now is the time to prepare so life is less stressful.

Personal Story

When I was home educating my children, back to school meant my days were going to become very busy. I found that spending at least an hour one day a week throughout the summer helped me be organized and ready for the first day of school. There was always a push right before the beginning of school in the fall, but I wasn’t completely overwhelmed.

List

The first thing I would do was to make a list of anything I could do now to make daily life and school life easier. Here is a sample list.

• Make personal and school goals (See blogs 1 and 7.)
• Order teaching materials early, so I could begin lesson plans
• Organize, de-clutter, and deep clean my house.
• Set up morning and evening routines (See blog 19.)
• Plan a weekly and daily schedule that considers the needs of each child. (See blog 13.)
• Plan lessons and make lists of what I need to teach my children.
• Purchase supplies.

De-clutter

My motivation for a clutter-free house was less stress by having less to manage. Now days this is minimalism. With five children, this was an ongoing process for me. One thing that motivated my children and myself to reduce clutter was to have a garage sale. It was always fun to have extra spending money. Here’s what we did.

• Go through the house room by room.
• Remove items which are no longer used, wanted, or fits.
• Reduce the amount of “keepers” to what you use, love, and fits in the space  you have allotted.
• Help the younger children with the process and check each older child’s work.
• Price every item.
• The day before the sale, display it neatly on tables set up in the garage.
• Have a notebook for recording sales. Have a page for each person so they get money for what they sell.
• Donate leftovers to charity immediately after the sale to keep the stuff from sneaking back into the house. 😊

Organize House

Once there is less clutter, organize. Tackle the house room by room. As you organize, add unneeded things to your next box of charity or garage sale items. More on this in a future blog post.

Clean House

Information on cleaning is coming in a future blog post.

Purchase Supplies

Purchase supplies and organize them so each child starts the year with something new. I even gave each child a few dollars to buy their own basic supplies. I felt it gave them ownership and they took better care of their things as a result.

Planning, de-cluttering, organizing, cleaning, and purchasing supplies early will pay off in less stress for “back to school”.

May God bless your healthful endeavors!

Joni

P.S. Please encourage others by writing about your back to school organization in the comment section above.