When School Bells Ring, Organization Reigns

I couldn’t believe it when I logged in to Facebook earlier this month to see pictures of some of my youngest cousins posing on the front porch early on a Monday morning, lunchboxes in hand and backpacks full of fresh crayons and notebooks. Back to school already? It was August 2nd! Summer just never seems to last long enough.

The ebbs and flows of life seem to take me by surprise every year. I can never get over how quickly time passes and seasons change. But alas, with the school year comes a more predictable routine, and with this new routine, a need to get – and stay – organized. Below are a couple of my favorite ideas for managing the daily grind.

Establish a routine. The sooner you can get on school schedule, the better. For most households, this probably means starting earlier bedtimes and wake-up times a week or two before school, but it sure makes the transition from lazy summer days to serious school days easier.

Create a dedicated space for school materials. Think beyond just a desk or a homework spot. Identify a place near the door where you organize backpacks, lunchboxes, raincoats/boots/umbrellas and all of your child’s gear. Consider using hooks or clearly labeled baskets/bins to keep it from getting messy. Having a place to shed all this stuff when they walk in the door helps, and it keeps the mornings from being hectic as you try to get out the door but a backpack has gone missing.

Corral paper clutter. I’ve got multiple parts to this tip:

• First, remember that the beginning of school always means that you need all kinds of documentation – immunization records, proof of address, a birth certificate and more. Gather this up as you head to registration and make copies, then store everything in a binder with pockets and sheet protectors so that you have these handy and can add to it as you need to. Consider adding other important information such as the school handbook/policies and phone numbers, numbers of other parents or friends of your children. The binder can be a one-stop resource for the whole year.
• Fashion a mailbox or folder where your child can drop off permission forms and other documents to be reviewed and signed. This would work well in the “backpack zone” mentioned above.
• Kids come home with all kinds of artful creations. But there’s only so much space on the refrigerator, right? Consider getting a flat box where you can store artwork and projects throughout the year. Or, as our friends at Amazing Moms suggest, see if you can get an unused pizza box from your local pizza parlor and use these boxes to store projects you can’t part with. Let each of your children decorate and label them with name, grade and year. These will store easily under their bed (along with who knows what else! J). Then, at the end of the year, make a year in review book like our blogger Jenny did.

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