Organizing School Books
After several years of feeling frustrated with keeping the school books neat and in order, I finally have a solution that I love and that works for me!
Each child has their own color of bag, and their name is embroidered on it. There is enough room for lots of books and also a pencil pouch with school supplies (pens, pencils, crayons, scissors, glue sticks, etc.).
And for my teacher’s guides, read-aloud books, and other supplies, I have the “mother of all bags” (actually, I think there is one even bigger than this one!):
And it even has a “J” on it…I love it! I also use this bag for other things, like when we had the sewing day at church…all my sewing supplies fit in here just great (all except for my sewing machine!).
The bags are stored in a bench/box that sits in the kitchen where we do school (it was formerly used as a toy box), which sits in our dining room. They all fit in there, with room to spare. When we are ready to do school work, each child just grabs their bag and we’re ready to go. Before this, I tried a basket for each person (not big enough and no room to store it), a plastic crate for each person (very heavy and hard for the little ones to pick up, and again, no place to store it), and then we tried a shelf per person on the bookshelf. This worked, but wasn’t as neat and tidy. Also, it was harder for each person to keep all their stuff together and keep it from getting mixed in with other books and supplies.
Using bags makes school portable. If we have somewhere to go during a school day, we can just grab our bags and put them in the van, and we’re ready to go!
We got these bags from L.L. Bean. These bags aren’t cheap. Seriously. But we used gift money from grandparents to purchase them (and we also often have gift cards from there), and we figured they would last for years and be useful for things other than school book storage. For instance, if we decide in the future that we have a better idea for school book storage, these bags will still be useful for trips and storing things. I noticed at Hobby Lobby a while back that they have canvas bags that you could personalize and use in the same way, and I’m sure there are other places to get them, too.
Now, I can’t take credit for this wonderful idea. I found this idea from Dawn at By Sun and Candlelight, and I have been so grateful! See her posts here (the original one I saw) and here.
This is a great idea! And being from Maine, I love LL Bean and have many of these bags around the house. We use them for the grocery store farmers' market/csa pick up because they are so sturdy
I love those bags. We've been using ours for school bags for a couple of years now (this will be our 3rd year using them), and so far they've worked great!
I can see how useful they would be for so many things.
Hi IrieMomma,
I got the size medium. It seems to be just the right size for us!
I just clicked through to the LLBean website and there are 4 size choices. Which size did you get for school? 🙂
That's a great idea to stencil the bags, Beth! And the one for library books is a great idea, too!
I stencilled bags for each of the grandchildren in much the same way and I am planning to do the same for our adopted child/children. I am planning to make one for all of our library books, too!
Thanks for the pictures!