How to Stay Organised When Home with the Kids Full-time (and Homeschooling)

How to Stay Organised When Home with the Kids Full-time (and Homeschooling)

It is a strange time we’re living in at the moment. Most of us are staying home as we’ve been instructed to and our children who are normally at school are at home with us. The routine has to change, we have to adapt to a new lifestyle for the nearest future and make sure we can fit in everything that we need to do.

To do this, we have to stay organised (or become organised!) and this is especially true if you’re juggling your home life with working from home and temporarily homeschooling your kids too.

How to Stay Organised When Home with the Kids Full-time

• A New Routine

Sit down as a family and discuss what your new routine could look like. You need to factor in who will be working from home and when, when to do the school work/educational acitivites and how much of this should be scheduled in for each day and also work out what housework and chores need doing on a daily and weekly basis too.

For some families, a detailed schedule can work really well while others need a more relaxed approach. We’re somewhere in between. We have a few things that are the same each day but are also aware that our 12-month-old baby might be really tired some days and that we might have to shift things around. We are trying to have a routine but are also flexible.

• A Work Place

If you’re working from home, you usually have a desk for your computer or other tools. A child who is now doing more school work at home will also benefit from having a work station. It doesn’t have to be a permanent desk. We use our dining table but have one side where we do school work and crafts.

Keep the worksheets from school oranised in a folder so that you know where everything is and keep activity books, notebooks and other materials neat too as a calm work space makes it easier for children to concentrate. We have this fun Our House Magazine Holder from Red Candy that we use for all the current books and folders for the kids’ school work.

• A Rule from School

At school, your kids are probably not allowed to leave a mess after they finish an activity. They choose something, do the task and then tidy away before moving on to the next thing to do. Make this a rule at home too and it will be much easier to stay organised and keep the house tidy. Tell the kids that you expect them to do this at home and remind them when they finish an activity until it becomes second nature, like at school.

• Looking after the Home & Family

Looking after a house and doing everyday chores can be part of the learning too and will help the home and family be more organised which in turn will make you all feel more relaxed and happy.

Involve the kids in doing the laundry, tidying, cleaning and preparing food. They’ll most likely enjoy it and will learn essential life skills at the same time.

• Don’t get too relaxed

It’s nice to be at home and not worry about leaving the house on time but do make an effort to not sleep in too late in the week and to get yourself and your kids up, fed and dressed in the mornings during the week to give you a good start to an efficient day.

Save the lie-ins and lazing about for the weekends. It’s so important that the weekends still feel special and different from the weekdays. If you can, try to avoid working at the weekend and save the school work for Monday – Friday too.

The magazine rack from Red Candy was kindly gifted to us.