Back to School Home Organization Ideas

With summer coming to (an all too soon) end and school days fast approaching, I like to feel organized and ready to get back to schedules and such.

Here's a list of back to school organization ideas that you may like to apply to your home & life.

Create a Children's Homework Message Center with the 16x20 Red Damask Child Message Center or choose a different design from my Etsy Shop (there are many to choose from.)

 DIY Backpack Holder Wall Hooks

  Create a Homework Desk Area

Organize Children's School Lunches

Time Saving Tips for School Mornings

 Find a spot to hang the lunch boxes.  I have the perfect wall for that in my pantry.

Another thing that we do in our home is Chores.  Each of my boys have their own chores chart and we use it every. single.day.  During the school year, right after school my boys get a snack and are expected to get their chores done right after that.

I am a firm believer that chores are good for children.  It has seriously made our daily clean-up so much easier and there is never a question on who has to do what.

I have many chores charts in my SHOP.

Our  chore charts sit in my Back Entrance Storage Cubbies:

Wondering what to do with all those school papers that your child will be taking home in a few short weeks?  If so, you'll want to check out:

 Organize Children's School Papers


The 8 1/2 x 11 School Days Form printable page is available in my shop too.

Doing a 12 x 12 scrapbook for your child? 

This is the perfect school days pre-made scrapbook page.

Are you into project life scrap-booking?  I've been getting into doing this and I love it!!

I designed the School Days Too - 4x6 Journal Cards and have been using these for my boys now.  One of these days I'll show you some of my scrapbook/photo albums. I'm totally addicted! and I'm loving these journal cards!  I have a photo printer at home, so I just print the individual 4x6 journal cards at home, but you can have any photo lab print them for personal use only.  They turn out so cute!

or... you can create an entire 3-ring binder for those school papers, like I did last year:

Simply print this entire printable school days memory book packet from my Etsy Shop and add them to any 3-ring binder.

There's a Boys School Days Memory Book

 and a Girls School Days Memory Book

Want to see even more ways to organize your home?  View all my organizing posts {HERE.}

So that's it for today. Tell me, are you feeling inspired to get some back to school home organization projects complete?  Are you ready to send your children back to school?

May you be a little inspired!

Until next time,
DaNita 
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Homework Desk Re-Do

I’ve been slowly re-decorating and re-organizing my back entry way.  I’ve already showed you the homework  message centers and the backpack holders.  My plan was to re-do my boys homework desk and I can finally say that it is finished.  You may have missed my post on the homework desk from almost a year ago, if so you can view that post here.

I put peel-n-stick cork tiles directly onto the wall, then painted the cork a barn red.

and made some fun labels, slid them through my sticker maker and stuck them to the bins.

The magazine boxes are from Ikea. 

I found the frame at a garage sale and spray painted it, then designed and printed the fun little saying and popped it into the frame. The star is from Target.

Colored pencils, pencils and crayons are in these little tins that I got from Target, they were white and again, I decided to spray paint these guys too. 

Take a look at what this space looked like a little bit ago…

and the now…

That is my updated homework desk area. 
How about you? Do you have a specific homework area for your children?

 Find the Circle Labels in my shop HERE

and the rectangular ones HERE.

I've got a few different colors in the trellis design available for sale, both in circles and the rectangles too. 

Stop by my SHOP and check them out.

Linking to some of my favorite parties

Make Your Own Backpack Holder Wall Hooks

I recently shared my Children's Homework Message Center post with you. Under each of my boys message centers I created a place for them to hang their backpacks.  Today, I'm showing you how to create these backpack holders:

 They're real easy to make...

Begin with a wooden block.  I found mine at Craft Warehouse.  You can get these at Joann Fabrics and other places like Lowes, Home Depot, etc.

 I spray painted the wooden blocks with black spray paint.

 and let them dry...

I also found these hooks at Craft Warehouse.  I LOVED them, but decided to paint these guys as well, because I wanted them to "pop" off the black wooden blocks.

So I went into my garage and found me some more Krylon spray paint.  I chose to go with the brilliant silver.  My husband had this stuff stashed away somewhere and he tried selling it at our last garage sale.  I grabbed it up and said 'NO WAY' am I selling this.  It's WAY to good.

Seriously, I LOVE Krylon spray paint!!  I've used it many times over.  In the past, I've tried to go the 'cheap' way and buy less expensive spray paint.  I will NOT make that mistake again!  This stuff is the BEST!! (that's my opinion) and I wasn't even paid to say that. ;)  - I really do LOVE it!

After spray painting the hooks, measure and drill holes into the wood.

(pre-drilling the holes makes it easier to attach to the wall.)

Place the hook on top of the block of wood and screw them into the wall and voila...

... adorable little backpack holders!  

I made four of these guys and hung them underneath the homework message centers:

 and I LOVE it!  A place for everything AND everything in it's place.

Want those prints?  You can get those 16 x 20 Child's Message Center PRINTS HERE in my Etsy Shop and you can always find all the items that I sell by clicking the MY SHOP tab at the top of my blog.

 :) Blessed day to you all.

 

  Linking to some of My Favorite Parties

Children's Homework Message Center

Way back, almost a year ago now, I created this area in my back entrance for my boys.  If you've been reading my blog for a while now, you may remember seeing this area.  It's the post titled Homework Bulletin Boards. 

As much as I loved the area and the bulletin boards, I've wanted to update it for a long time.  Now that my boys are back in school and they have homework and school and sport schedules, I decided NOW was the perfect time for the updating.  Let me explain why I wanted to change the boards... 

#1 - My boys come home with classroom newsletters each week, which are 8 1/2 x 11 paper size. On the old bulletin boards, I had to fold the newsletters in half, which I didn't like.

#2 - I had printed out little mini-calendars to track their months.  I did this for about 2 months and that's about it. 

#3 - There was NO place to track their weekly schedule, WHICH is very important for me AND for them. 

#4 - When I first created this section in my back entrance, I only made 3 bulletin boards.  I didn't make one for my littlest guy AND he actually has appointments too & eventually will be going to school, so I wanted a board for him as well.

AND 

#5 - I wanted to create something that I could have available in my Shop.

So this here, is what I came up with:

Here's a little closer look at the dry erase boards:

I designed and printed the 16 x 20 Child Message Center and framed them in $3.00 frames from Craft Warehouse and use them as a dry erase boards writing directly on the glass with my dry or wet erase marker.

Go here to see how I made the backpack holders.

The Child Message Centers are available HERE. 

After printing your piece, simply glue a 4 x 6 photo to the print and if you'd like to customize it a little more, you can either PRINT your child's name or initial onto colorful cardstock paper and glue that to the top right box.  If you have a Cricut machine, cutting the letters of their names would work great too.

or... you can let your child customize the name box area, "signing" their name to a piece of cardstock paper and then attach that to the print (that would be super cute too.)

What's really cool about this piece is that you can change the photo and the name box area as often as desired, giving a new look, which means that you can use this print over and over again for years to come.

I customized my boys' prints with a recent photo of each of them and their names.

After placing the print into the frame, I simply hot-glued clips to the glass to hold their weekly school newsletters, important papers and homework.

 and so far, it's been working well.

 

I use a wet erase marker to write directly onto the glass.

Homework due dates, tests and any other important information is written on their boards.  PE days are now marked on the day of the week, giving no reason that PE clothes should be forgotten at home.  Soccer schedules for 3 boys can get crazy busy too, from practices to games to where and when.  There is absolutely NO way I can remember it all. NOW it's all written on their boards.

There's a small monthly calendar too!

Here's one last look at my boys' message centers:

I Love. Love. Love. this area NOW!  It's really been working GREAT!
:)

I'm super excited to be offering more Message Center Prints in digital format for a fully organized home. Keep checking the shop to see all available pieces.

Get your Digital/Printable Child Message Centers HERE

May you be a little inspired!

Until next time,
DaNita