One Thrifty Chick: Organize Multiple Children and School Efficiently

This post contains affiliate links.

I am so thrilled to share with you a system that our family has used for several years now that has totally changed how our home runs.

I have three school aged children and between them all I lose my marbles halfway through the year with all the paperwork as it is. If this system was not in place, I truly don't know how things would get done.

Two years ago I shared our Command Center that you can check out here. Since we recently added 1,000 Sq Ft to our home, I decided to make a much larger and more functional space for our system.

In our family room we have a space that we consider the kids command center. There are two dry erase calendars that provide a look ahead month for sports as well as school schedules. You can get them here.

It's very nice to know what days they have off of school, or when field trips are and not have to pull out a calendar and flip pages for this info. When the first month is over, we wipe it clean and rotate the calendar positions on the wall.

Below the calendars are hooks for each of the kids to hang their backpacks on.

My kids are dialed into the routine of walking in the door and hanging backpacks up. It is also nice not to search for backpacks in the morning. And makes it easy when Mom wants to drop sweet notes inside each of them.

To the left of the calendars we have a bucket that holds all of the dry erase and wet erase pens we use on these. The kids also know that those markers do not ever leave that location and are only to be used on the calendars.

Just below that we mounted an old school pencil sharpener just so we never have to search the house for those small ones again.

Mounted on the side of the locker are their chore charts. Head over to The 36th Avenue to find free printable chore charts just like these.

To the left of the lockers are these fun metal "wall pockets" from Pottery Barn that have each child's name on them, and the bottom one is labeled recycle. You can find similar ones here on Amazon.

Each Friday the kids clean out their backpacks of school work that has been graded and places it in their wall pocket. Any promotional fliers or notices that we have read get placed in the recycle pocket.

Throughout the year I pull their school work from the pockets and place them in storage containers labeled for that school year. I have done this since our oldest was in pre-school, and will continue all the way through high school. You can get a 6 pack of these storage totes here really inexpensive!

They each have scrapbooks where report cards, class pictures, sports pictures and awards will eventually end up. The rest will be there for them to look at as they get older.

Moving over to the other side of the family room we have a small nook that leads to the master bedroom towards the back of the house.

This is where we have set up a homework station/blogging desk. Yep that's where I blog. Not super fancy, but functional and perfect for the time being.

The kids have art supplies in the storage drawers that they can use anytime they want.

On the shelves are their homework boxes that you may have seen in my previous command center post. All three of them each have their own.

Inside you will find supplies that may be needed to complete any homework they are sent home with. These have been a lifesaver and eliminate a lot of arguing over who took who's supplies. You can find similar boxes here.

On the wall opposite of the desk they each have a clipboard with their name on it.

This is where they place homework that may need to be done throughout the week. Our kids are still young and have a reading log that needs to be filled out daily and turned in weekly, so that too lives on the respective clipboard.

Other things we place on here are picture forms, fundraiser information and anything else that will be completed or turned in in the near future.

That's it! Simple yet functional organization! My kids love having structure and this is what our command center provides.

Thank you to my readers for stopping by today. Don't forget to follow me on Facebook and Pinterest, and you can find me on Instagram @OneThriftyChick.