Quick and simple homeschool organization methods that work well for the large family household (and small spaces) without a lot of time, effort, and money.

I love the concept of cutesy color-coordinated and labeled homeschool organizing, but putting it into practice confounds me and feels rather time consuming.  I want quick and simple homeschool organizational methods that will work for the large family household.

So, in this post you will find a smattering of simple ideas based on what we do to keep our homeschooling materials organized.

Nothing cutesy.

Nothing complicated.

Looking for simple homeschool curriculum storage ideas?
READ >> Simple Homeschool Organizing (that works!)

You can also listen to my podcast on Organizing Your Large Family Homeschool –

Organizing Homeschool Books

I have yet to meet a homeschool mom who doesn’t like bookshelves. Most of us have a literal library, with books crammed in nearly every corner of the house, and we are ALWAYS on the lookout for more bookshelves!

In a large family homeschool, this becomes exponentially true! In our current home, I can count a hodgepodge of a dozen bookshelves strewn about my home. And I’m always on the lookout for more!

For over a decade now, I have organized my bookshelves into 2-3 sections.

1.  The Main Bookshelves

• Organized chronologically because our homeschool curriculum is history-based.
• Has a section for Theology and a section for books that don’t fit into a chronology.

This bookshelf is where our personal home library is housed, along with the living books and other books we need for our homeschool. In our current set-up, there is a section for Theology, and then it moves into history from Creation to current day. The section after that is fiction that doesn’t have a home, children’s books that aren’t currently upstairs, and science/nature/how-to books.

For more on how to organize large family homeschool bookshelves read this Related Post:
How to Simplify and Organize Your Homeschool Bookshelves

2.  Books of the Year

• Books we will be using throughout the school year – mostly based on our homeschool curriculum.

This bookshelf sits in our dining room and houses all the books that will be used during a particular school year.  I also put any books I plan to read in this shelf as well.  This keeps everything for the year in one place so I don’t spend precious time hunting down that one book we need to finish our Ancient Egypt study.  This has been a huge time saver and probably ranks right up there as one of my favorite homeschool organizational tips.

3. Homeschool Curriculum Shelves

• Where old curricula goes to die…or be used again another day!

I actually have what we call a “homeschool bookshelf” that is easily accessible near our regular bookshelves that houses curricula and supplies that will be used sooner rather than later.

All of the other older curricula that may never see the light of day again, but I just can’t bring myself to let go of it will be addressed in the next section…

 Organizing Homeschool Curriculum and Supplies in a Closet

For most of my homeschool years, I have had some type of homeschool closet.  In a couple of our homes, it was literally a shelved closet in the hallway.  Prior to that, it was a cheapie stand-alone storage closet with doors. 

I consider this to be one of the essentials of homeschool organization.  Homeschool books are not used every year, even when you have back to back to back children.  You have to have a way to store all the unused curriculum. If you do not have a bookshelf capable of housing all the curriculum, a closet is a very good option.

This is also a good place to put those items you use only occasionally that would be in the way if left out.  If your closet has enough space, this is also a great place to put supplies like paper, crayons, etc that you do not want the kids to have access to all the time. Keep them in tubs, but still easily accessible to you so you don’t have to stand on your head to open boxes every time you need something.

And if you find the kids are getting into this closet and rummaging through things, I’d highly recommend a simple hook lock beyond their reach. Major sanity saver!

Organizing Homeschool Mom Supplies

Mom ends up with just about as much stuff as the kiddos, and she needs a place to put it all!

Organizing homeschool mom supplies with baskets

The photo above is my Homeschool Mom Basket circa 2012. The things in that basket were used nearly every day.  It sat beside the rocker I most often taught from while nursing babies and rocking toddlers. It was a handy place to put everything so that all I had to do was reach down and grab the next thing. 

I started doing this when I was pregnant with #6 and our school room was downstairs.  I was too worn out to make the trek down to that dingy, dark basement, so I hauled everything I needed upstairs and put it in a basket by my chair.  Since then, it has become a staple of our homeschool organization!

Several years ago, when I was no longer nursing babies during school hours, the basket morphed into what you see below. It sits atop my Books of the Year Bookshelf, and has become my homeschool “brain.” The video below shows me decluttering the basket and gives you peek into what I keep in there!

Related post: The Homeschool Basket Lady

Organizing Homeschool Mom Stuff with Binders & Notebooks

Many moons ago, I shared my household binder method.  My school binder was one of those binders.  Before things became so digitized, this is where I kept lesson plans, notebook paper, pens, any extra things I wanted to use in our homeschool. I still use binders for our Holiday Homeschool Plans and my Family Recipes, but I have abandoned the binders in favor of a notebook for homeschool planning.

You can learn about this method of planning in my book:

Organizing Library Books

I often utilize our local library for our homeschool. I order tons of books through the holds system and then simply pick them up as they come in.

I used to use a Library Box, but it wasn’t very portable.  When my friend, Stacy, started selling Thirty-One Gifts, I got this large utility tote from her and it has been great!  Aldi sells their own version that is also a winner!

We keep all the library books in here and then just grab the whole thing and go!  It’s tough and holds up to the massive amount of books we bring home from the library.  It’s also a gauge as to when to stop the children from bringing us more books while at the library.  If the bag is full, we leave!

Organizing homeschool supplies and extras

Plastic tubs and totes – They make a size of plastic tote for everything! 

Each child has their own pencil box that they bought during one of our Back to Homeschool excursions. I also have large “community” boxes that hold crayons, pencils, colored pencils, and markers for all the kids.

For many years, we had a “Craft Tub” that housed all the crafty items separated into plastic bags and random boxes. There were feathers, googly eyes, jute, a box of paint and paintbrushes, and so much more. I’ll be honest – it was a mess, but it was easy. About a year ago, I paid my 11 year old daughter to separate everything into craft organizers we found for cheap, and while it is much neater, I have to admit I kinda miss that old green tub.

Related post: Organizing Your Homeschool with Backpacks & Tubs

Metal containers – I don’t use a lot of these, but I do like them for pencils and paintbrushes (see the photo above).  We used to keep our mail and our cloth napkins in a couple of square metal containers, but have since started using a basket on the table the napkins and a matching homeschool mom basket for the mail.

Baskets – Oh, how I love baskets!  They make the ugliest of things look lovely. Baskets are great for setting out books you want your kids to read in their spare time. (We do this all throughout the year and especially at Christmas!) And the great thing is how easily you can find baskets of all shapes and sizes for cheap at thrift stores.

Laminator – For a large family, it is imperative you take as many measures as you can to make things last.  A laminator helps with that.  Amazon runs specials on Scotch laminators a couple of times a year or you can buy one at WalMart for a better price than Amazon’s every day price.

I laminate schedules, kids’ artwork, curriculum supplements that need to be less flimsy, etc. And if you are using a Morning Menu (a fun little sheet that your kids can document the weather, time, their feelings, etc on), laminating them can make them able to be used and reused with wet erase markers.

Binders & Page protectors – I love the versatility of binders and page protectors.  Everything from ebooks to nature notebooks can be put in binders.  I even know some homeschool moms who use page protectors as a way to reuse workbook pages (use those wet erase markers!).  I actually keep a stash of page protectors and notebook tabs on hand because you just never know when you are going to need them!

Other organizing ideas we have used over the years:

Perfect Workbox System for Small Spaces or a Large Family
Assignment Binders
Organizing Art Supplies for Large Families & Small Spaces

Need more ideas to keep your large family homeschool {and home!} organized and running smoothly?  Check out my book Large Family Homeschooling!  This 170 page ebook contains much more content than the posts you find here.  It also includes a ton of resources and freebies from other websites.  It was a true labor of love, and I know you will love it!

Learn more here!

Organizing the Large Family Homeschool
Amy

What do you think of when I say Homeschool Schedule? A rigorous, segmented schedule that must be followed exactly or you will fall miserably behind? Let’s change that!

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Resoures mentioned:

• Podcast 07 – Should You Homeschool Year Round?
• Podcast 10 – Schedules for Homeschooling Year Round
• Podcast 50 – How to Put Your Homeschool on Autopilot
• Podcast 77 – How to Anchor Your Homeschool Day
• Podcast 83 – How to Set Up a Simple Homeschool Schedule
• Podcast 86 – An Easy Morning Time Routine
• Podcast 125 – Ideas for Homeschool Schedules
• Morning Time with Multiple Ages – post
• Year Round Homeschooling page on Raising Arrows
• Autopilot Homeschooling – post
• Are Homeschool Groups a Waste of Time? – post
  

TRANSCRIPT
[coming soon]

Podcast #191 – Do I Really Need a Homeschool Schedule?
Amy

Lots of traveling and painting and swimming and realizing I need to work hard to make connections.

Read all the Large Family Homeschool Posts!

Our 21 year old daughter arrived Sunday evening to stay for 2 weeks. Her husband has a job near here, and will come to visit on the weekends. I am so thrilled to have her here! I’ve missed having her around.

This week, we repotted plants, went shopping, chatted on the deck for hours, and she even came to my Apples of Gold Bible study.

If you’ve never heard of this study, it was written in the 90’s I believe, but the concept is still quite worthwhile even today. Our church does it a little differently from the book, but the idea is to gather women together to allow for Titus 2 conversations. We share a meal (this week was my turn to make a side and dessert), have a lesson, and talk in smaller groups over topics relating to the lesson. It’s been lovely!

In case you are wondering what I made for my side and dessert, it was a Spaghetti Salad that has a mayonnaise and vinegar sauce and peppers, onions, and green olives incorporated throughout. Dessert was my Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Another thing my daughter and I did while she was here was test a percolator she found brand new at a garage sale that will give her the ability to make our family’s Christmas Hot Punch in her own home! It’s so fun when you find treasures like this!

This is percolator she found for only $15!

She also put together a Paint Party for me, my mom, and the little girls. We sat at the dining room table, each of us with a rectangle of art paper and a paintbrush and a myriad of paints and pens dispersed about us. We also had creamsicle lemonade (creamsicle tea steeped in lemonade), hot tea, coffee, and some sweet treats.

We each painted a background on the paper, and then passed it to the next person to add to it. We had a ton of laughs as each of us added something new to the artwork, sometimes pretty, sometimes humorous, sometimes downright odd, and then revealed the finished product when it made it back around to the original owner. Here’s what we ended up with…

The reason it was just us girls at the Paint Party was because the 3 teenage boys were at their 28 year old brother’s house for several days doing what they like to call a Par-Tay. They play games, grill out, and stay up entirely too late. I’m so thankful they have this kind of relationship with a sibling that is more than a decade older than they are. I’m sure when they were all little, they were a bit of a nuisance, but now that they are teens, they have more in common and share many common interests.

Besides my boys traveling, my oldest daughter was finishing up a European tour. She’s been living with us this past year while she worked in a neighboring community and regained her footing after a difficult 2025. She decided to take a trip to England, Ireland, and France to prove some things to herself, and I do believe she came back stronger and braver and ready to tackle the next big thing in her life – a new job and a move to a new state.

Also among the travelers was my husband, who has been at Ft. Bliss, TX for a while bringing soldiers home from overseas. Because he was leaving again later in the week, we decided to celebrate Father’s Day early. Our 21 year old daughter gathered all the younger children and they made cards for Daddy, and then on Thursday, we made a pasta salad and bought his favorite jumbo shrimp and enjoyed a lovely day celebrating him.

Because of all the traveling, school only happened on Wednesday and Thursday this week. We are studying the rumblings of the American Revolution just in time for our nation’s 250th! I love when things work out like that!

Now, for a few random things from my week…

A few years ago, I transplanted black raspberry and blackberry bushes from a friend’s yard. The blackberry bushes died, and the raspberry bushes never produced much. Finally, this year, they looked much healthier and ended up producing more than a few berries. Still not enough for a pie or jam, but enough to snack on.

I finally released a new podcast episode this week:
Creating a Meal Rotation That Isn’t Boring

I’m working on a new set up for podcasting, and it’s been a lot of trial and error. Hopefully, I’ll get my groove back and be able to put out more content.

And finally, our church’s BBQ and pool party was on Friday evening. Most of the family was able to go, including our daughter’s husband who drove in for the weekend. We had a nice time, however, I noticed something while at this party. I chose not to swim because it had been raining all week and was chilly. As I sat around the pool watching my children, I realized I am in a very different age/season, one that appears to be under-represented in a lot of places.

At this party, there were a lot of people in their 30’s – the ones pregnant and with small children, even the ones with bigger families and older children who are pushing their 40’s. There was also a group of late 60’s, 70’s and 80 year olds who hung out together. But my age group didn’t seem to be there.

Now, I have to think it’s because most people in their 40’s and 50’s are empty-nesters, and so a pool party makes no sense to them. And I have mentioned before how out of place it can feel to have younger children and yet not be considered a younger mom.

I am nearly a decade past my last pregnancy – which still blows my mind. I am sure you can tell by all the discussions I’ve had on this blog in the past few years, that navigating this season has been a little unsettling, and downright difficult at times. I have to remind myself that I’m not in my 30’s, while also allowing myself to look toward older women for potential friendships. And yet, I feel 30, and the age of my children makes friendships with older women not as easy.

I’m still homeschooling 5 kids, and yet, I have grandchildren.

I’m a walking dichotomy, standing in a generational gap. I know I’m not alone, but as I’ve heard from other moms living a similar season, there is a loneliness that naturally happens as you navigate these years as a large family mom.

You have to work to build relationships with new people and it even takes work to hold together old friendships – work you’re not sure you can manage anymore. You are busy in new ways, and life begins to feel like a lot…all the time.

And that’s why it’s important to go to Bible studies and outings and game nights and paint parties – especially now that the babies are getting older. You may feel like you are dragging yourself there when all you want to do is sit at home with your hormones and read a book, but loneliness will eat away at you if you allow that because your kids are growing up, and someday they won’t be there to help you become automatic friends with their friends’ moms.

Find your people. I’m not real sure where they are, but don’t give up! They might be in the church small group you’ve been thinking you ought to join. They might be in the Bible Study that seems like it is full of older women. They might even be down the street and feeling just as lonely as you are. And they might be an old friend – the one you lost you track of when both of your lives became busier.

Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 25 of 2026
Amy