moms with kids in school

[mamaKristin]

How do you manage the backpacks/papers/lunch stuff? I'm feeling like I'm drowning under all the *stuff* right now, and I only have two of my three in school so far!

Do you have a zone set up at the door to manage things? Do you have a system? What does it look like? I need some ideas and tips, and I'm sure I can't be alone!

[erinee]

It's always a problem here. We have a narrow hallway and no room to put extra things. We have hooks by the door, and everyone in the family has their own hook. The kids hang their backpacks and coats on their hooks. They put their shoes underneath their backpacks. I check folders as soon as they get home, toss anything I don't want to keep, put things I want to keep in their boxes, sign anything that needs to be signed and put it right back in the folder. If they have homework, I put it on the kitchen table until it's done. As soon as it's done, it goes right back in the folder.

Zach's trumpet goes in the "music room" (aka dining room), and he's just made it part of his routine to put that by the door as he's checking to make sure he has everything. It makes me nervous not having it right with the rest of his stuff, but we just don't have room for it. So far he hasn't forgotten it at home (but he has left it at school a couple of times).

They buy their lunches, so I don't need to worry about that.

[RiverRock]

Not alone. I've tried various things, but nothing has worked well except having mudroom cubbies to keep each child's items in a contained area. Each child has a locker style space with hooks and shelves. Ideally the backpack will be hung there and completed homework returned to the backpack when done. On a corner of my kitchen counter (a desk area) I keep a pile of current papers (school and other), and under this pile is a drawer with files so things like swimming lesson cards and past report cards can be filed here.

I've toyed with the idea of putting a hanging magazine rack on the wall of our homework room to keep ongoing assignments...but I'm not convince it would be worth the holes in the wall. I have also thought about putting coat hooks by the piano so the piano bags have a better place than jumbled in a basket on the floor.

I'm hoping others come through with some awesome ideas! :popcorn

[SortaCrunchy]

:cup

[Bonnie]

I was going to suggest cubbies. :yes And a zealous commitment to them. ;)

[Eowyn]

I have no storage space for individual stuff. Right now, Ian's backpack and lunch box are kept hanging on the dining room door.

[expatmom]

My kids backpacks sit under our entry table in the front hall. Not ideal, but we are working with what we have. Each kid has a plastic lidded container under their bed for school stuff we are saving. Dd2 brings home copious amounts of stuff from preschool. Some of it 'goes missing'. :shifty My big kids school uses these zippable plastic folders to send stuff back and forth from school. These stay in my kids bags. My kids are responsible for cleaning out their lunch boxes each day & then packing their snack stuff for the next day. The lunch boxes end up sitting out on the counter until they are repacked. All the clutter drives me nuts!

[WanderingJuniper]

In our entry each child has 2 hooks. 1 for coat & 1 for bookbag/lunchbag
Underneath the hooks is our paper recycles bin. They put their folders on our counter for me to sort through. I hand them the items for recycles from their folders put back what they need and take the stack of what I need.

In our landing zone I have 3 magazine boxes. 1 for Bart. 1 for Me. and 1 for school. In the school box each child has a folder. Items that I need to keep for reference but don't have to take action on I put in their folders. Items I need to take action on go in the front of the box and I handle that after they go to bed.

Once I realized that I was going to go from 1 in school to 3 in school I knew I had to do something. I'm also not attached to their school papers.:shifty

I'd take a picture but the light fixture in the entry needs replacing and Bart is doing that tomorrow.

[mamaKristin]

I'm re-working our front hall closet today. We have a few hooks in the entry, and a deacon's bench. I'm just tired of the clutter, and the hooks don't hold the backpacks well, and are busy with jackets and snowpants (and the boot rack, and the basket for mittens and hats...and, and, and). I've got some stacking baskets, but I think I might put some milk crates in the closet. They would face fowards more easily than the baskets :think Now I need to reorganize a whole pile of stuff downstairs to free up the milk crates :doh

[joyful mama]

:heart bbl

[RiverRock]

I'm re-working our front hall closet today. We have a few hooks in the entry, and a deacon's bench. I'm just tired of the clutter, and the hooks don't hold the backpacks well, and are busy with jackets and snowpants (and the boot rack, and the basket for mittens and hats...and, and, and). I've got some stacking baskets, but I think I might put some milk crates in the closet. They would face fowards more easily than the baskets :think Now I need to reorganize a whole pile of stuff downstairs to free up the milk crates :doh

Sounds like you have a good plan, Kristin. I hope it all goes smoothly for you. :heart

[mom2threegirls]

All three of mine are in school this year so we have TONS of papers and projects coming home on a daily basis. The first thing they do when they get home is hand me all the papers in their backpack and I throw away any duplicates of stuff (with all 3 of them at the same school I have 3 copies of every single flyer they send home) and stuff we don't need or want. I write stuff down that is coming up on our whiteboard and calendar so then I can recycle more of the papers. Any flyers/newsletters/etc that are left are truly important and they get to hang on the clothes pins I painted to match and superglued to the frame of our giant kitchen whiteboard. I tried having one clothespin for each girl to hang their stuff but I find it all gets jumbled together :shrug.

We have 3 of these: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20093927 hanging on the walls in our coat closet and laundry room/mudroom (next to eachother) and that's where the backpacks and coats go right away, as soon as they get home. We pack lunches and the lunchboxes stay in the backpacks until after dinner when I make the lunches and then a kid gets the lunchboxes from the backpacks and brings them to me, and after they are packed they stay in the fridge till morning.

I've had to learn to throw away things like worksheets or projects that they weren't very attached to. The special projects usually get scanned and then we have a copy on the computer and throw away the original, or put into the file cabinet. I have a file folder for each kid of the really special projects that we want to keep (or stuff that is too big for the scanner).

:twocents