An Organized Schoolroom!

Posted by Cindy on August 12, 2008

DIng Dong, the schoolroom’s done!

The schoolroom’s done!

The schoolroom’s done!

Ding Dong, the big ol’ schoolroom’s done!

This little tune from The Wizard of Oz has been going on in my mind ever since we finally tackled the schoolroom this morning!  School was supposed to start this week.  I don’t know about you, but I just can’t wrap my mind around a new school year until everything in the house is in place.  Instead of a pregnant woman nesting before birth, I nest before school!  LOL

Anyway, we decided to hold off for one more week on our studies while we tackle some much needed areas of the house.  By the time the week is finished – Lord willing – we will have a fresh, clean and organized house through and through!

This morning’s big job was the schoolroom.  Remember the picture I showed you at the beginning of summer break?  Well, I’d picked and poked at it off and on over the summer, so it wasn’t quite that bad, but we still had A LOT to do.

Clean school desks.

Organized books.

Organized resources.

Organized craft supplies, manipulatives, colored paper and folders and science kits.

Remember the bookshelf?  It’s now home to our chapter books and basic school and art supplies.

A semi-organized play area for little guy.

A new toy jail downstairs so little guy can’t break in and free the captives while we do school work.

And a new spot for linens since the new toy jail used to be my linen closet.

The last task for the schoolroom may or may not be done any time soon.  Hubby has promised to put in florescent lights (or some other lighting solution) in place of the very dim “regular” lights.  Our schoolroom is in an upstairs bonus space.  It’s a wonderful room, but very dim because we only have four small windows, two at either end of the room.  Come winter time, I *need* more light.  I believe I suffer from SAD anyway, but I think anyone might with the lighting in our schoolroom.  Hopefully, hubby will tackle the lighting project soon.

I’d love to go on a “tour” of your schoolroom.  (I’m always looking for wonderful organizing and decorating ideas!)  Let me know if you post about your schoolroom any time soon, or if you have already!

Toy Jail

Posted by Cindy on January 25, 2008

Our toys are in jail.  They have visitation rights, but very limited.  You see, since I couldn’t lock the messy children up, the toys had to be the ones to suffer.

They’ve been in jail for almost a month now and the time apart from the children seems to be doing everyone well.

We took every toy in the house and put them all in their appropriate boxes, bags or containers (like they should’ve been to begin with.)  Then, I carted an old bookshelf up to our bonus room space and started stacking toys.  It didn’t matter whether they were attractively placed or easily accessible because the kids weren’t going to have “unsupervised visitiation rights”.

If they want a particular toy, they have to go through the guard (me) to get it.  I go to the bonus room area and pull out the whole container.  In other words, if Caleb wants one particular spy toy, he has to take the entire spy gear box.  As long as the spy gear (or other type of toy container) stays neat, he may keep the container as long as he likes.  No other container of toys may be played with until the first container has been returned in its entirety.

I really thought this idea might not work, but it has!  It has!!  The house AND bedrooms are staying tidy.  The kids are enjoying their toys more.  And I’m smiling more! 

Sorry that I have no pictures to share.  Our camera finally died.  Just took it’s last breath one afternoon without warning.  Maybe we’ll have a new camera soon.  That was to be my Christmas gift, but the dryer took it’s last breath before the camera.  We’ve buried two important things this month.