The "Homework Station"

Our old house was a one story.  The kids kept their backpacks and school supplies that they weren't using in their rooms.  Supplies, like paper, pencils etc were kept in plastic drawers on top of the fridge.

Our new home is a two story, and since we usually do homework at the kitchen table, where I can keep a crack the whip keep an eye on everyone , I thought we needed a different way to organize our homework stuff.  Cause you know if you have to send them upstairs to find something they are bound to get distracted and who knows when they will come back down again.  So what I wanted was, one central place to keep everything.

I love these Closetmaid Cube storage thingies.  I picked this one that is three cubes wide by three cubes high.  It works out perfectly since I have three kids.

Above it, I hung three white boards.  Here we write little reminders about things that are important for the upcoming week.

On the top shelves:
We have plastic drawers with lined paper for homework, blank paper for drawing, markers, pencils, scissors, glue sticks, erasers, calculators etc.  

On the bottom shelves:

• On the left we have some misc stuff (right now it's the kids fundraisers from school) 
• In the middle we have our dry erase boards that we use instead of scratch paper and that Ella also uses to practice her spelling.  We also have our three hole punch and other misc stuff that doesn't fit in the plastic drawers.
• On the right side are some of our teaching tools that we use at home, like flash cards, stickers and workbooks.

The middle row of shelves:
I gave each kid their own cubby in the middle row.  Here they can put their own personal school stuff.  Riley has the kind of schedule where he has half of his classes one day, and the other half the next day, so he can leave the books he doesn't need here.  This is also a good place for them to leave long term projects, so we know exactly were everything is.  

On the very top of the whole thing, we have dry erase markers, magnets that we can also use for our dry erase boards and our electric pencil sharpener.  The basket holds our keys and sunglasses (This just happens to be a convenient place for them)  The binder is labeled "Our School Day"  Inside is all the information for each of the kids schools.  I have a quick cheat sheet in the front that just says what time each kid gets on and off the bus, who their teacher is and what classroom number.  (You know, in case I got hit by a bus or something and someone else had to get them off to school.)  I also have their individual class schedules, lunch menu's etc.  A lot of this stuff is on my laptop but I like having it all in one place where we can just glance at it.  (And you know, that whole hit by a bus thing again)

Anyway, this has worked out really great for us.  If Ella wants to draw, she can just grab some paper and just grab the markers drawer and bring them to the table.  And the kids don't have to go far for any supplies that they need when doing their homework.  We know exactly where everything is!