Se7en Organize School Starting With the Dresser…

I have published a post on our school dresser before, but it needed a total revamp and it needed to look a little less like school and a lot more like fun. The dresser is next to out dining table and to be honest no-one really wants to eat every meal alongside school books, least of all me!!! Also it just needed to be more fun. Not to mention, a lot of the stuff we didn’t need and was ready to be passed along (bye bye math manipulatives!!!). Also, my kids always want to play in the kitchen, alongside me and why shouldn’t they!!! And I am all for keeping things where you use them…

Take a look at our dresser, sorted and good to go:

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Now before I do a tour of the dresser I just want to say I am a firm believer in having stuff available to kids… markers, paints, whatever!!! My only proviso is that it stays in its spot, which is at the table. Also if you are old enough to get things down then you are old enough to pack things back. That being said:

Let’s Start At The Top And Work Down:

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The Top Shelf:

Has things I don’t really want my little ones to get into yet… The first box has a couple of science things like our hand-held microscope, a scale, a jar for collecting beasts; the next box has things like test tubes, syringes and such-like, then our flashcards and you know I hate them!!! These flashcards are things like morse code and pictures of American coins that we occasionally need for deciphered our math books. Followed by a couple of puzzles and Boggle.

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The Middle Shelf:

Scissors, pencil crayons, markers, the purple box has matching cards… all our favorite crayola goodies, pencil crayons and fine markers, not to mention the kids sacred crayons… these were gifted and it isn’t often that our kids have their own personal supplies.

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The Bottom Shelf:

I used to keep all our reference books on this shelf but we only ever used the dictionaries… they stay and the others got a new place elsewhere!!!

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So dictionaries, then a box of math shapes, chunky markers and crayons. There is also a box with bits of wooden puzzle, and a little box of threading beads (light entertainment for little hands). Then the eclectic pen collection and a a collection of little cars and tiny people in the bug box. There is also our game box, which deserves it’s own post, in this section:

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Where we keep packs of cards, dice, pick up snakes and UNO.

The Drawers:

Below the shelves are drawers. In the first one we keep scrap paper by the ton and in the other drawer we keep special things: their pencil tins and so on.

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The Cupboards:

Finally the cupboards beneath – I used to keep school files in here… but the files take up more room than available so they have found a new home and we keep our rotational toys in there for now. And the sewing machine…

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Top cupboard shelf:

The top shelf of the cupboard section has toys they play with every day:

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Animals on the one side and matchbox cars on the other. Carefully “hidden in plain sight” are the puzzles – I am not a big puzzle fan so I am happy to have them there but a bit awkward to get out!!! Also I reduced a whole cupboard of puzzles to one box by cutting off the picture off the old ragged boxes and storing each puzzle and picture in a ziplock bag.

The Bottom shelf: And the bottom shelf has toys (Lincoln logs, trains, gears and classic Fisher Price toys from my childhood) that haven’t been glanced at all summer – not even once, but they will play with them in the winter, when we have endless rainy days.

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That’s it – our dresser: It is the ultimate place to go in our house if you are looking for something to do. I will show you some more back to school goodies next week.

I popped this post onto the Works For Me Wednesday Site – go and have a look there for all sorts of tips on absolutely anything.

If you did something fun with your kids or made a great link list this past week then pop over and link it up to our Fabulous Friday Fun.

16 Replies to “Se7en Organize School Starting With the Dresser…”

  1. Hi SoCal FruGal… Actually 7+1… so eight kids!!! We love the dresser too it occupies a lot of our time!!! Have a good week!!!

  2. Hi C, The nicest thing about everything having its own place is firstly it can be found and secondly it can be put back!!! Thanks for stopping by!!!

  3. I am with you on keeping everything accessible to the kids. I like your puzzle storage idea, I saw a friend of mine do the same thing. I have started this for our puzzles as the boxes start to break, rather than repairing the boxes.

  4. Hi M, No more puzzle bits falling out of broken boxes!!! Also the ziplocks are a bit tricky for the one year old who likes to unpack ALL the pieces. We actually have a dot, circle, cross or some significant marking on the back of each puzzle piece… each puzzle has its own special marking. Madness I know but some little people can drive you to that!!!

  5. not madness at all! Unless you’re calling me mad too 🙂 We have the same system – ziplock with a special mark on the back of the puzzle, usually the number of pieces written in a specific colour – and that mark goes on the ziplock bag as well! We cut out the pic of the puzzle from the box and store that in the ziplock bag too so that the kids can see which puzzle they’re doing 🙂 I love systems! My downfall is that I have great systems all neatly packed away that I then forget about them and weeks go by before the kids get to play with them!

  6. Hi T, Good to hear from you!!! Neat and tidy systems work so well when we keep them in cupboards don’t they!!!! It’s only when we put them, to the “open season” test we see if they really work!!! I hope you guys have a fabulous weekend together!!!

  7. I keep the supplies all zippied-up in the kitchen too…We had an armoire that held everything until its overuse led to the doors coming off:)

  8. Hi K, That is funny about your doors – the doors to our dresser have been repaired more than countless times. What can I say, they have great endurance!!! Thanks so much for visiting!!!

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