- Here are some organizing tips for you
at the end of the school year.
(relaxing music)
Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast.
I'm Sonya Shafer.
You know, we often think about beginning of the school year,
I need to get my ducks in a row
and get everything organized,
but there are some things you can do
at the end of the school year
to help you with that new re-entry the next fall.
Here to join me with this discussion
is my friend and coworker, Laura Pitney.
- Hi.
- Laura, the organizing guru.
- Maybe, I'll go with that.
- Let's talk about end of school year,
what are some things, rather than just say,
woo-hoo, we're done, throw everything in a closet
and go outside,
what are some things we can do now
that will help us when it's time to start up again?
- That's a great question.
There's a couple of ways to approach that.
You can say, "You know what,
"we're going to put it all away,
"I don't want to see it, I'm done, we are over it,"
and not even think about it for the summer,
you know, which is, that some,
that may be what people want to do
just because they're so burnt out,
they're just, they just don't even look at it.
But if you do that, come time to start again,
you might feel overwhelmed.
So that's the point of this conversation,
but if you want to pack it away
and never look at it again for,
or not look at it for a couple months, that's okay.
I want to give you permission to do that.
That may be what you need.
Some of the cleaning out and prepping for your summer break,
that's some, for some people that's very healthy.
They feel like there's closure there,
they see everything they completed.
It's a happy thing to do.
For some people, you know, it's,
you know what, we're just gonna pause this.
We need to set it aside, we need the break,
and then they're ready to jump back at it in the fall.
So there's a lot of catering to the type of person you are,
so you need to acknowledge really
what's gonna help you be able to detach for a little bit
so that you can come back at it
maybe with a happier spirit
or, you know, sometimes the breaks are good.
So you just have to figure out your personality.
So the backstory of that is,
we've talked about before is,
things should have places or homes.
So for me, when it comes to the end of the school year,
it makes me really happy to put everything back in its home
or in its place on the bookshelf.
So the first thing I do is I sort through things
that I know are going to be reused,
whether it's reused during the summer,
as like free reads or free time,
or if it's going to be reused next school year
or reused for another kid in a couple of years.
Anything that we're probably
going to touch again at some point,
I usually put it back in its home on our bookshelves.
- So that'd be things like,
coming to my mind would be your "Book of Centuries."
- Sure.
- That's continuous.
- Yep.
- Your nature notebook. - Yep.
- Because you're hoping the kids are gonna use those
over the summer even. - yep.
- What about Living Books?
- So I categorize my books,
I keep them by topic or time period
on my bookshelves. - Yeah, me too.
- So if they wanna read those during their summer
or free breaks, I let them, I mean, go for it.
- Okay.
- So they don't usually, but sometimes
there'll be something that'll trigger a memory or an idea
and they'll want to go find that chapter
in a previous book they've read.
- So you're talking about previous read,
previously read books.
- Correct.
- Not books that we're going to be using
for the coming up time period,
and you don't want them to read it now,
because then they won't want to read it again later.
- Yeah, so those are on my shelf,
but usually they don't have any interest in the ones
that we haven't gotten to yet,
just because they don't know what they are,
or like you said, you know, I want to make sure we have it
for our scheduled school time.
- Yeah, I had two separate sections,
like, this is Mom's section,
you may not borrow those books without asking.
- Sure.
- And so that would be the upcoming books
that I didn't want them to have yet.
- Right.
- And then there were other bookcases in the house
that were like, yes, those are free reads, go for it.
- Yeah.
- So we could, as you said, a place for everything, yeah.
- Sure, sure.
So I find, I basically go through any of the supplies
that we had, we just finished up with,
and decide what goes back to the bookshelf or to its home,
and then there's lots of consumables,
if you will, maybe copywork books
or projects that they've done.
- Written narration?
- Yes,
- Dictation passages. - All that kind of stuff
that truly is assigned to that school year.
It may not be a resource
that they have to get out again anytime soon
unless they just want to,
you know, look back at something.
So I sort, I basically sort through everything
and either it's going to be keep
to where we can have access to it or something,
a pile that I'm gonna store.
And so I just keep a running tub,
like a clear tub with, I mean,
you can get them at Walmart or wherever, but a clear tub,
and I put a sheet of paper on one of the skinny ends
of the rectangle and I label it a 2020-2021,
whatever the school year is,
to where all during the school year,
if it's things we finished with it,
you know, I don't, I legitimately don't need again,
it goes in that tub,
and then come the end of the school year
when we're cleaning out our cubbies or our baskets,
if it's things that need to be retired
that we're not going to access again,
it'll just all go in that tub, all kids.
So I have just found that easy for me.
So in my attic I have, you know, however many tubs,
but I can see where they're labeled
just in case I ever need to go back to it
or pull something out that, you know,
as an example to a younger kid
that maybe one of my older kids did,
so I can have easy access to it.
But instead of doing it per kid or per grade,
it's just like a family tub
for all the work we completed for that school year.
And that's, that has worked well for me.
I have moms that do keep a tub per kid,
and so it may be a collection
of multiple school years in the tub.
But the point being you no longer need that stuff
in the center of your home
or in the center of your school room.
It's a good thing to clean out and put it away.
I think there's this fear
that the homeschool police are going to show up at your door
and you've got to prove everything you've done
for all times homeschooling.
And that's a legitimate thing.
I mean, I want to show that we were truthful
and were credible with what we're doing in our home,
so I don't necessarily want to get rid of it,
but my motivation is more for the keepsakes
versus I might get in trouble if I don't have it.
Another tip would be to make sure you're writing
maybe your child's name on things
and maybe the month or year that they completed it
or said it or created it. - How do you remember that
at the end of the year?
- Well, I try to do it all along.
- Oh, okay.
- So, you know, yes, because you just have,
sometimes you have these things
that your children spent a lot of time and effort on
and you're like, that's amazing,
and then you're, you don't know what it is,
and you don't remember what it is,
and you know, you want to be a good mama
and treasure it forever,
but you may not know what it is.
So if you have them tell you about it
maybe after they leave the room or later you flip it over,
write it down, put a little date on it.
That way, if it ever comes up again,
or 10 years from now when you're looking through the box,
you can flip over to the back and be like,
oh yeah, this was the narration on,
you know, the pyramids or whatever
the drawing or project was.
So that's helpful, too,
especially if you have lots of children
is just to make sure you're writing the date
and maybe what it is, because you won't remember, so.
- Now, this sounds like, keeping all these boxes,
especially if you have one for each child,
it sounds like it could take up a lot of room in the house.
Do you have, do you keep one for each school year,
or do you just keep rotating out that one year?
- I think that's just a preference for the family.
I personally keep one per school year.
So once they, I'm trying to think whatever the year was,
2013-2014, whenever I started that,
so I have however many boxes in my attic.
And so I do have a attic,
so it's easy to store them in there.
It's been rare that I've had to go back in one of them,
but there's been times where the kids
want to look back through it just for like,
you know, a trip down memory lane kind of thing.
- Sure, sure.
- So that's one reason why I do a box per school year,
because otherwise I would have four boxes
times however many years we do the homeschooling,
so it just would add up.
Plus when you really think about
the things you're actually keeping,
it's not a whole lot.
- You're not keeping every single thing.
- Correct, correct.
So like I said, it's some of the consumables,
some of their, my favorite projects or art,
or I may have them choose, you know,
what are your top five art projects
from the year, you know,
and maybe just keep a few of those,
not all 30 of them, or, you know what I'm sayin',
is that selective, the selective ones
that really mean something to them.
I also have a friend who kept
a three ring binder for each kid,
and so she kinda had like
a homework turn-in box if you will
for anything that they were finished with,
and maybe either she needed to look at it,
it was just kind of a system she had in her home.
So after she looked at it,
or if the kids said this is something I really wanna keep,
she just kept a three ring binder for each kid
and punched holes in it or put it in a sheet protector.
I mean, there's not a whole lot,
because you know, it just depends on
what you're engrossed in that year.
I mean, it may be more art heavy one year,
but it may be, you know,
a composition notebook for written narrations
the next year, so.
- It depends on what even level
the child's in, too. - Yeah, yeah,
yes, yeah. - Things would change.
- The point being is what do you do with all the stuff,
and the things that, you know,
you feel like you should keep
but you don't necessarily feel like it's important,
you know, it's just finding that balance
of what works best for each family or for you as the mom.
Like, I like to know that I kept some things.
I don't necessarily have any sentimental attachment to it,
but for my kids' sake, if they want to remember something
or if they asked me about something
that they were really connected to,
I love to be able to go pull it out.
Personally, I could just throw it all away,
but I don't want to do that to them, you know,
so having that box per school year
really helps clean out my school room
or clean out my kitchen
or clean out whatever cabinet I'm using.
That way I feel like it's a tidy space,
and when I start planning over the summer,
maybe start collecting supplies and resources,
I have a new cleaned out place to put those things.
So when it comes to August, September,
whenever you start back for the next term,
you know, whenever that is,
I don't have to clean out and then prep for the new.
The cleaning out is already done,
and so it's just a happy place for all the new things.
- A couple other things came to mind.
One is that I am very much a minimal clutter
- You? Never. - in my house, yeah.
- So rather than keeping the physical object,
I would take a picture of it.
- Yeah, that's a great way.
- Although it's not the same for some people.
You know, some people are very tangible.
They want to hold it, and if it's a book or something,
of course you can't just take a picture of it,
like if your child writes a whole story,
you'll wanna keep the whole thing.
So, but a picture might work for artwork
or something like that, depending on the situation.
- Sure, that's a great idea.
- Or if you don't have room in your house.
- Sure.
- So pictures might be good,
or keeping a digital portfolio, if you will,
something like that.
The other thing that came to mind is
I school year-round,
and so I don't really have a set
in June I'm going to do the clean-out
so that in August I can do the reload, you know.
It almost has to be an ongoing thing, I guess.
- Yeah.
- Rather than, although even if you go year-round,
there are planning times.
- Sure, sure.
- So when you get to that planning time,
you might just do a mini clean-out
to set yourself up.
- Well, all along the school year,
there's, might be things that you complete,
or maybe you fill up a composition notebook,
or maybe you do finish a copywork notebook
or a math notebook, and you have to get a new one.
What do you do with the old one?
It needs to have a place to go
versus just taking up room on your shelf.
So even if you do school year-round,
you're still having that ebb and flow of,
oh, we're going onto the next thing
because we finished something else,
you know, just the timing, like you said,
doesn't have a distinct start or stop,
but you do need a place for those things that you finished.
- Right, right, so that tub system works well.
- And one thing I will say, you know,
during the school year, I might end up with a stack
of things that eventually need to go into a tub,
and then I may not realize
I need the tub until my stack gets too high.
So, you know, it may just be as simple
as starting a completion stack somewhere.
Sometimes it might be a designated spot on your bookshelf,
or I know I had one on the top of my bookshelf,
and then it, I didn't like to see the pile,
so therefore it triggered,
oh, I need to go and get a new tub for the school year.
So, you know, if you just are conscious
of that cleaning out all the time,
then, you know, you're going to realize
you need a place for that.
So I just think it's kind of naturally what happens anyway,
it just needs to eventually get out of the room
or go into storage kind of thing.
- Good, good.
So decide what's going to go into storage,
decide what you're going to keep using over the summer,
and make room for the incoming stuff
that you're going to be using in the fall.
- Yeah, and then troubleshoot, you know,
when you pack away stuff and you start thinking,
oh, this really worked well or this,
we had maybe a trouble area
as far as maybe too much clutter in one spot,
you know, once you clean out,
it kind of gives you a clearer vision
for maybe tweaking some systems or storage uses,
you know, in your pantry or the bookshelf or the cabinet.
So even just getting that stuff
physically out of the space kind of helps you reset mentally
about how you want the room to flow and function,
so even that kind of refreshes you
for the next you start back.
- Good point, thanks for these great tips.
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