Back to school is in full swing! How did your family survive the first few weeks back to school? In our family with three kids, things can get quite crazy. Here are the back to school organization tips our family uses from morning till night to make things run smoother in our household.
Start of the day: back to school organization tips
Preparing for the day
It’s a no brainer that parents need to wake up before the kids get up in the morning. Use this time to prepare for the day and perhaps you can also squeeze in some time for yourself.
GOAL: Breakfast is made and laid out. Backpacks and work bags are packed before the kids wake up.
Getting the kids up
When my kids learned how to read numbers we put an alarm clock in their bedrooms. They understand that they need to stay in bed if they wake up before a certain time. This helps them from waking up too early and disrupting everyone else.
Miss 8’s alarm clock goes off at 7:15 am. She gets out of bed, turns off the alarm clock, changes her clothes, brushes her teeth, does her hair and comes down to the kitchen for breakfast. She is starting her day off independently.
Changing clothes
Create a system that will help make changing clothes easier for your family.
For us: instead of dressing the younger kids individually in their rooms, I dress them together in the hallway. I organized all of Miss 3 and Mr. 6 clothes in a central spot (linen closet) beside the bathroom. The kids wake up and I lead them straight to the bathroom to change and brush their teeth. Mr. 6 is now more independent. He picks out his own clothes and changes. My labels have little pictures to help him figure out where everything is.
GOAL: Have the younger 2 kids changed and teeth brushed within 5-10 minutes.
After school: back to school organization tips
Bucket system
When the kids come through the door at the end of the day, things can become very messy. We got shoes, jackets, lunches, school bags and other things that get thrown around. To help organize, I set up buckets for us to drop our stuff in.
Shoe bucket: With 5 people and 10 feet there seems to be like a million shoes. When kids come home, they take off their shoes and drop them in the shoe bucket. This helps keep the entry area clear of shoes and we find it so much easier than getting the kids to put shoes away on a rack.
Backpacks/work bag bucket: contents are emptied and placed in this bucket.
Lunch bags bucket – contents are emptied and placed in this bucket
GOAL: This system is saving me time and makes my evening much more efficient when I prepare things for the next day
Supper meal planning
Supper time can be the most stressful time of my day. We come home and we are all tired. I now have to face 3 hungry kids. It is difficult to cook a meal from scratch at this time of day and so we use meal planning to dealing with this time of day.
Before my work week starts at the beginning of the week, I plan what we will eat for supper for the week. I make a grocery list for what I need and then I go shop. I then spend an afternoon prepping and cooking. Some meals I create entirely and some I just pre-cut the veggies/meat to be cooked the day of. This batching process saves us a lot of time.
GOAL: Supper is ready within 30 minutes when we come home.
End of the day: back to school organization
Evening schedule
It is still busy after dinner. We still have to get through homework, bath time, bedtime and then getting things ready for the next day. I created an evening schedule to help us get through it all.
GOAL: We all go to bed on time. Getting enough sleep is important!
Time | Activity |
6:45 pm | Dinner is done and some kitchen clean-up starts |
7:00 | Homework and reading |
7:30 | Bathtime |
8:00 | Small snack and milk |
8:15-8:30 | Bedtime for kids |
8:30 | Kitchen cleaning up Packing lunches and school bags |
9:15 | ME TIME |
10:00 | Shower and bed |
Dedicated homework space
We went to Ikea and bought a desk for each kid. Miss 3 got a desk with adjustable legs to accommodate her little height. The kids love having their own workspaces. The area has good lighting and there are no toys to minimize distractions.
GOAL: setting up a good environment for them to work
Snack planning
Packing snacks and lunches can be such a chore and take up precious time in the evenings. During the weekend when I am cooking for the week I also batch snacks. When we are packing up lunches the snacks are basically done.
GOAL: snack planning save times
Our back to school organization system helps our family move through our day with less stress. It helps keeps our home a bit tidier, meal planning saves us money, our kids are in bed on time and it helps keep my hubby and me sane.
Time is precious and we want to make full use of it efficiently. Of course, every family is different and functions differently. It took us a while to figure out what works for our family and hopefully, you will find how to make your family’s routine more efficient. Work on one thing at a time to make home life a bit easier.
Good luck with your back to school organization!
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Hi Minda,
Wow! You are really organized! I especially like the shoe container because there are always a pile of shoes disorganized and blocking the doorway. Also, I could certainly benefit from more meal prep. It would make things much easier!
These are all great tips! I love the simple idea of putting a bucket by the door for them to “dump” their things in when they get home. I think I’m going to get a bucket for myself so the diaper bag and my purse don’t just sit on the floor. My daughter is not in school yet so we don’t have any bookbags or stuff. My husband can use one for his work bag and swim coaching bag! Great ideas!
Hi Gwendolyn! This is the first season that we are using the bucket system for bags and it has been working super well with the kids. It sure does minimize “messes” at our entry door. Good luck with it!
Great tips!
Thank you Kim 🙂
What a lovely way to organize. Thanks for sharing!