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Long gone are my days of being able to keep up with our schedule in my head. Six children, homeschooling, various activities for each child and a sometimes traveling husband make for busy days and busy weeks.
When we were in the process of moving this summer, I found a great spot for a homeschool command center. I spent some time searching around on Pinterest for ideas of what I wanted to incorporate.
It’s helpful to have the family calendar and meals out in the open. It minimizes questions from the older kids, they can see what’s going on for the day and the week, and more importantly, they can see what will be for dinner!
Homeschool & Life Command Center
Our School Name – I had an artist on Etsy make a sign with our school name, Stella Maris Academy. Totally optional, but a fun addition.
A Large Wall Calendar – This is my brain on the wall.
Meal Calendar – A reminder for me and most importantly my kids.
Chore Chart Space – Each morning the kids can check their chore chart to help stay on task (it doesn’t always work, but it helps!).
Daily Schedule for Younger Kids – This is a work in progress as I’m slowly adding cards with their activities to the afternoon.
This is easy and inexpensive to pull together, more importantly completely functional and easy to keep up. I find that if organizing systems are too complicated, no matter how good they are or how pretty they look, I won’t keep up with them. I have purposely kept this command area simple and straightforward.
Supplies Needed for Command Center
Large Wall Calendar
Dry Erase Markers
Weekly Calendar (for meals)
Poster Putty
Other Helpful Organizational Resources
Pinterest Board – Home Organization – I have many command center idea pinned.
15 Organizational Tools for Homeschooling Moms
How do you keep organized?
Jen you are so organized. This is a beautiful example of an organization system that is simple for people with several children. Awesome!
Stephanie Harrington recently posted…African Art Project For Kids
Thank you Stephanie! I like simple 🙂
I love a good command center! We have a bulletin board command center off our kitchen too and it’s invaluable. I just switched to a monthly meal plan from a weekly one and it’s made things a lot easier actually. I was intimidated to try it for years but with 4 kids I needed to spend less time meal planning so I tried it and it’s working surprisingly well. The kids like to see the meal plan on the wall, it definitely reduces the constant asking what’s for dinner and arguing over what we’re having 🙂
Amanda recently posted…Quilts Are Not So Scary
Yes, meal planning is a life saver! I have been keeping my meal plans each week and just rotating them a bit, I agree it does make it easier than starting from scratch each week. Before I wrote down what we were having I would often answer “food” when they asked what was for dinner 😉
Great idea! Thanks for sharing! With our crew here from ages 2-20 I’m always trying to stay on top of who is going where/when/etc. But I think I have too many mini-command centers. I like your idea of everything together. Right now we have the menu in the kitchen along with the calendar of where people need to be. But our school stuff is in the schoolroom and everyone knows that never assume anything is up to date without checking mom’s planner! I’m going to look for one central place to put it all. I think it might help ME with the feeling of too much going on everyone and me being the only one with the whole picture!
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the idea of the plaque! My 13 year old son is into wood working and asked what I want for Christmas. I am showing him your plague!!!
ooops….too busy again to check what I did! PLAQUE! Not wishing plagues on anyone!
RealMom4Life recently posted…Family
Thank you! I think the plaque is a great project for a budding wood worker!!
How do you feel about the two month vs one month calendar? My kids thought they wouldn’t need the second month.
Definitely like the 2 months spread. I like to be able to see what is coming up for the next month, plus we always seem to be planning things in advance.
This is REALLY great, Jen!!! And I must add, I love your school name plaque!
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Good job, Jen! I’m inspired to get something like this going for the new semester. Our would be a much smaller scale, but more organization is on my to do list!
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Thanks!