Hey friends!! Ok so I'm getting this out a lot later than I had planned, but, hopefully you'll still find it helpful. A few weeks ago I pulled all of our craft and homeschool supplies out, trashed a bunch of things and started organizing. Organizing honestly is not one of my gifts. And this job was especially challenging since our craft/school space is also our dining room.
If you're in the same boat, here's a few tips I can give you that has helped keep our space functional and pretty.
Don't assume that because it's going to be used as a space for kids, that you have to use plastic bright colored furniture and storage. Our dining room is the first thing we see when we come in the house so I really want it to look like a dining room, not a playroom. I love using antique furniture in our house, I feel like it gives spaces so much extra character. Since having kids, I'm always on the lookout for pieces that are pretty, but pack a strong storage punch. This hutch holds all our family games in the bottom portion. They're easy to access, but hidden! Ideally I'd love for the top part to be solid rather than glass, but this was a gift...and also it's important to remember, kids DO live here...and they can see this stuff all the time and it actually encourages them to want to craft and color more. You know the saying "out of sight, out of mind"...well I don't want aaallll the supplies that inspire creativity to be out of sight.
Bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils...name that movie!
Repurpose things like glass jars. I use spaghetti, jelly, salsa, you name it. Peal the label off (I use Young Living Lemon essential oil to get the glue off!) and there you have a "free" storage container to help sort all of your supplies. It helps so much to be able to see what's inside rather than having to pull everything out every time you're looking for something.
I also love using baskets. These baskets have my "mom/teacher" supplies.
My daughter loves collecting acorns out of the yard. We use them for math.
Here are the main things we use for curriculum. So far I love The Good and the Beautiful. The lessons are very short and we can easily supplement with these workbooks if she wants to do more.
My daughter is 4 and we're doing Pre-K but my son is 2 and so I wanted to share some things I have for him. I LOVE these Usborne books!! The best part is my daughter loves to sit down and play teacher with my son and she will help him with these books. Honestly I think he learns more/better from her.
These are perfect for fine motor skills. I found them on Amazon.
I put together a fun little basket of things to work on specifically.
Here's another antique piece. It holds all sorts of things. Puzzles for my daughter (4) on the right and for my son (2) on the left. The drawers hold Paint, playdough, all the messy stuff. Since it's an antique, they don't open easily...so I can control when those items are brought out.
Last year I decided to paint a magnetic chalkboard wall. You can get magnetic primer paint from Amazon or Lowes. Chalk paint as well. We use sidewalk chalk. It's never cleaned off for more than a few seconds. They spend so much time here. The magnetic part is great for those lightweight ABC/123 magnets...which really come in handy for preschool lessons.
Lastly, we read A LOT. We have books all over the house. But this Spring I transformed part of our kitchen nook into a reading nook. We put some of our favorite books out here and snuggle up...a lot of times I find these two snuggled up together "reading". It's one of our favorite spaces in the house.
I really hope showing you our space and what we're using, is helpful!! ❤
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