When I had first heard from some friends that they had an actual school room in their homes–I will be honest, I was a little jealous.  To think of having ONE room in the home that would hold all of our homeschool items.  One room where all the learning games with their little pieces would stay put and not get all over my home.  A place where the craft projects lined the walls along with learning posters just as I had in school…ahhhhhh the jealousy.

But then I had babies.  Lots of babies and most of my school time was done sitting on a couch nursing the little one.  Sometimes I did school from my bed because it was the only place to get it done that day.  Sometimes my children did their schooling on the countertops as I was preparing dinner–because it was the only time I could have to help them.

My dreams for a school room have since faded, do I miss them??  No, not at all.

Why not??  Wouldn’t you appreciate a room where everything was contained?

By homeschooling over the past 20 years, I realized that I NEED to do this:

• I need to create a learning environment for my children in our home.  I want them to view LIFE as a learning experience.  I want them to know that learning does not just come from a classroom it comes when you interact with people and learn things in uncommon ways.
• I need to be able to multitask.  I don’t believe in the last 20 years of homeschooling that I have EVER got to sit and complete school straight for 2 hours.  It just does not happen.  I am usually in between preparing meals, flipping a load of laundry, or tending to screaming toddlers.  I need to be able to move about the home and having the children in a centralized location works best for me.
• I need to be FREE from the temptation to collect stuff.  I am not a hoarder by nature, but if I had a room that could be filled with LOTS of school items, I might not think twice about accumulating things I don’t really need.

So what is one to do who does not have a designated school room?  You use what you got.  In our current home, we use the dining room table most of the time.  In our old home, we did most all of it in the living room.  It is just based on the location of the room in our home.

You find a shelving unit to hold your books and supplies.  I like to use a bookshelf to hold books.  I prefer my filing cabinet to hold all of our crafts, and folder games.  I have a shelf in the kitchen that I hold all of the school supplies.  It is up out of the reach of little ones vying for a new box of crayons.  I keep a small container available for them to use and refill as needed.

I like plastic dish pans to hold the games and puzzles that we store inside of plastic freezer bags.  As soon as we get a new puzzle or new game, I empty the contents into a bag.  I don’t even mess with a box, it will just get ruined.  For all of the individual learning sets like lacing cards, and wooden beads, those go into a plastic shoe bin, labeled on the edge.

So instead of feeling guilty or a little jealous because your friend has a school room, use the rooms that the Lord has given to you.  Think of education in an uncommon way.  Be grateful for less clean up and enjoy these moments because they go fast.

 

I have shared this week my new book Declutter your life…when less is more, and I am going to follow up by doing a post each week to keep motivating you to declutter your home.

Click here to purchase

Grab the book to get started and to help you as you declutter your home. If you can’t, then enjoy the video series that I will be posting on each week.

Week 1  Kitchen cabinents

If you  have read through my large family organization series you will see how we had organized our home.  This is more about living with less and how you can do it.

Even though you THINK you need things in your life, chances are you don’t. After moving 700 miles from our home, I had to get rid of many of our household items so that it would fit into a moving truck.  I thought I was more of a minimalist then, but I realize how much more I can live without.

 

Here are our kitchen cupboards.  I have fairly large room in this cabinets.  I am able to put everything in one area and that makes putting away dishes fast. 

We keep ONE set of dishes for everyone.  No more, if we have guests then we buy paper products.  It makes clean up easier anyways.  Plus it means that I have to do dishes instead of letting them sit in the sink after each meal.

I have found these restaurant style cups, they are almost unbreakable and they work well for our home.  Each person has a water bottle that we keep filled and in the refrigerator but this is good for milk, juice, or kombucha. 

I got rid of most all of our serving dishes.  I bought 2 matching bowls to use with our dishes and we use these for serving.  I keep one round glass bowl with lid for heating up leftovers in the oven.  I have kept 1-9×13 glass baking dish for reheating as well. It also works well for cakes and other smaller desserts.

In the top of our cupboards we have lots of space that was too high to reach without climbing so we use it for storage of our cleaning supplies. 

Everything stays out of the way and with one quick look I can see if I am out of an item.

For my plastic cupboard I have a small shelf on top that holds my mixing bowls.  I keep these nested together.  I keep a few cheap plastic ones for popcorn and snacks.  Plus when my husband runs out of an oil pan, guess who he comes too???  I got rid of all my other mixing bowls that I used to have.  These 2 stainless steel ones work just fine and contain the mess by being taller.

For my plastic stash, I went with large plastic containers.  I am trying to accumulate enough so that I do not have to use plastic bags when I bake items.  I picked up some medium sized ones and they were good for leftovers.  I try and keep all similar sizes–square/rectangles for the ease of stacking.

In the back I keep my round 16 oz containers that I use to freeze foods in.  I do not have a source to buy them here, so I am making sure to keep these.  As I use up my foods in the freezer this cupboard can get messy quick, I take the extra containers and store them in a cooler in our storage area.

Under my sink, I store a container in back with trash bags–to make sure they don’t get wet in case the sink leaks:)  Up front I have my cleaning rags, and in the ice cream bucket I have sponges, magic erasers, and metal scrubbers.  I hang up my bottle brush–for cleaning out water bottles and jars.

The other side I keep my bottles of natural cleaners that we use each week.  I also keep my cutting board, griddle, and waffle maker down here.  Out of the way as we don’t use it much.  I keep extra grocery bags for lining the trash cans with in here too.

My kombucha cupboard.  Did I ever think I would have a kombucha cupboard??  What’s kombucha you ask? click here to find out.

Here are my jars on top fermenting in the second phase with fruit. 

Here are my large crocks with kombucha brewing.  Kombucha has a smell that is not very pleasant, I am very thankful that I am able to keep this inside of a closed cupboard. 

My baking cupboard.  I keep items that we use for baking in here.  Everything in one place.  Works well.

On the middle shelf of this cupboard I keep my strainer and small stainless steel mixing bowl.  My bread pans fit nicely in the center and on the right is the rest of my food processor.  The bottom is on the shelf below it.

Up top I keep items that I barely use like parchment paper, rolling pin, applesauce maker, and extra blades for food processor.  These are out of the way and if I need them, I do a cupboard climb.

My other cupboards are food.  I don’t have a basement to store food in anymore but I am provided with much cupboard space.  I have a tall pantry and then 3 other cupboards I keep food in.  It works for us now.  I keep my toaster, popcorn maker, and crockpot in with the food.

Week 2 of decluttering your life kitchen drawers.