Homeschool Theater

Organizing Homeschool Supplies?

A very useful tool for organizing supplies in a busy household is the over-the-door pocket organizer. They are easy to find, in a wide price range, in different colors and sizes. Some will keep the contents out of sight, and in others the items will be visible. The pocket holders are excellent space savers when you have a number of small items that need storage but there is no room for a cabinet or bookshelf. My family has an organizer in nearly every room.

There is an organizer on the door of my husband’s office for his office supplies and one in the bathroom for toiletries. I keep my garden tools, knee pads, gloves, etc. in another.

My girls have a clear vinyl shoe organizer over their bedroom door. When they were younger, in the pockets they kept stored and on display their collection of fashion dolls. Now they have outgrown the dolls but not the organizer! Their little bean bag animals are the new occupants.

One of my favorite pocket organizer uses has been to keep track of our homeschool supplies. We keep this one on our pantry door. The pocket contents depend on what we are currently learning about. Sometimes they are filled with flashcards, or maps, or science tools. The pockets have been wonderful in keeping our viewfinder toy accessible and the discs organized by topic. Whenever I buy a set of discs relating to something we are currently learning, I have a space for it. Currently our pantry organizer is filled with pens, pencils, index cards, erasers, rubber bands, small notebooks, glue sticks and a paper punch.

What else can you use an over-the-door pocket organizer for? How about kid’s toys, such as Matchbox cars, action figures, trading cards, or doll clothes?

Science supplies, such as magnets, microscope slides, eye droppers, magnifying glass, beakers, test strips, or scale weights.

Math: small geoboards, rubber bands, manipulatives, flash cards, clock dial, play money. A clear organizer can also be used as a teaching tool to display one number card per pocket, such as for investigating place value or adding two-digit or larger numbers.

Art supplies, like paint brushes, watercolor trays, pencils, markers, acrylic paint tubes, packets of clay, and modeling tools.

Craft Supplies:magnets, pom poms, glue gun and gluesticks, feathers, seashells, pasta, strings, beads and buttons.

The organizer also makes a wonderful display holder for collections for your children’s current study: seashells, rocks, nature items, plastic animals or historical figures, or information booklets.

If you need to keep your homeschooling supplies in check, I recommend the over-the-door pocket organizer.

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Michelle B. is a homeschooling parent in Arizona. We like the Homz Kidz 12-Pocket Over-the-Door Hanging Organizers

Nearly everything we do in an average day involves math in one form or another, and it is easy to include our homeschool children in many of the activities. When thinking about homeschool math planning, it is helpful to know (and good for our budget!) that learning many early math concepts in the preschool homeschool requires no textbooks, workbooks or special equipment. Included here are a few of the basic concepts for our children to understand and simple learning activities for each one.

*Same and different. By offering choices to your child you can help him learn to recognize different traits in objects. “Would you like a green grape or a red one? Do you want to play with the big blocks or the little ones? Do you want to slide down the long bumpy slide or the short curvy one?”

Lay out four items in a row, three the same and one that is very different. For example, three spoons and one drinking cup, or three stuffed kittens and a teddy bear. Ask which one is different from the others. When your child can easily pick out the odd item, lay out four more objects but with only one different trait, such as three blue buttons and one yellow button, or three teaspoons and a tablespoon. “Same and different” is the precursor to sorting.

*Sorting: When your child understands the concept of “same and different” he will be able to easily begin sorting. Sorting requires a child to identify certain attributes in an object, such as color, size, item usage, etc., and then form a group of objects according to those traits. As adults, we do sorting every day: putting away freshly-washed laundry, the groceries on shopping day, and the dishes from the dishwasher. Separating the sales ads, junk mail, and personal mail. Organizing our collections. Determining which books to turn in on library day and which to keep at home. Involve your young child in some of the sorting that regularly happens in your house: give him the pile of socks to pair up while you are folding clothes. Have her determine which foods go in the pantry, the freezer or the cupboard. Let him put away the silverware. As you determine the usage of the day’s mail, hand the mail one at a time to your young sorter and let her place each piece in the appropriate pile or basket. At play time, sit with your child and ask him to corral the plastic animals into their families, drive the cars into the correct garage, separate the dinosaurs into meat-eaters and plant-eaters, or collect the play food into main dish or dessert piles.

*Patterns: Patterns are all around us: in music, art, building designs, nature. This concept is also related to “same and different” and “sorting.” You can use toy race cars, building blocks, pencils, coins, buttons, beads, candies, etc. to create patterns. Line up a pattern using two attributes: red car, green car, red car, green car. What car comes next? When your child can easily copy your simple pattern and extend it correctly, then add a third attribute. Red car, geen car, yellow car. Keep building the base pattern when your child has mastered the previous one. Have your child make a pattern for you to follow. As you extend your child’s pattern, speak out loud for your child to hear how you solve the problem. For example, “Okay, I see first a dime, next a nickel, then a penny. Since the first coin is a dime, I will place a dime next in the pattern.”

You can draw base patterns on paper with markers or crayons and have your child extend it. This would provide a boredom-buster in waiting rooms or at the restaurant table.

What patterns do you find around you? Cars in a parking lot, flowers in a garden, silverware on the table, products on a store shelf; on giftwrap, fabric, scrapbook paper, wallpaper. “I see a red rose and then a yellow rose. If we continue this pattern, what rose would be next?” “Do you see the pattern your feet make on the sidewalk when you walk through a puddle?”

Same and different, sorting and patterns are a few of the many easy-to-apply early math concepts for our young homeschool children.
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Michelle B. is a homeschooling mom. With 20 years of past and present homeschool experience, she shares her insights with our guests.