Back to School Organization | Tuesdays with Jacob

Back to School Organization

August 7, 2018

I shared the photo above on my Facebook and got a request for a blog post about it so... voila! Here it is! This will be my first year in 13 years of teaching that I have to get not only myself out the door bright and early, but my preschooler too. My preschooler who takes after daddy and is NOT a morning person. Let's just say the next few weeks are going to be painful as we adjust to our new normal. In the interest of making things as easy as they can possibly be I started looking for ways to streamline our morning. 

I knew I wanted one central area to keep all of Jacob's school stuff, and I wanted it downstairs since that's where he does all of his getting ready after eating breakfast. You do NOT need a big space to set up a command center like this. We have a teeny, tiny, townhouse and I had about 2 feet of wall in between my kitchen and dining room to work with. If I can find space - so can you!! 


I started at the bottom of the wall and worked my way up. My school has a uniform (Hallelujah) so I picked up a 5 drawer tub (find it HERE) and had my mom cut out labels for each drawer on her sillhouette. Each part of the uniform gets it's own drawer. 

Top (small) drawer: has his accessories - belts, socks, underwear, and tee-shirts for Fridays. We picked up two of these belts in brown and black because they are super easy for little hands! 



Second (small) drawer: has his sweaters (for the few weeks a year it's cold enough) We love Gap Kids for cardigans and Crewcuts for pullovers. Some of our favorites HERE and HERE

Third (large) drawer: has all of his polos. He has to wear solid colors and while the brands we like best are Gap, Crewcuts, and Chaps, I do get most of his uniform pieces second hand. My parents have a great kids re-sale shop near their house. 



Fourth (large) drawer: has his uniform bottoms. We find the best fit with Ralph Lauren, Crewcuts, and Gap, but again I get most of them second hand. Jacob has three colors he can wear - navy, khaki, and black so we picked up a few shorts in each color and one pair of pants in each color. (It's rarely cold enough for pants here) He also has jeans and jean shorts in there for Fridays - which I almost always get at Gap, I love their denim! 



Bottom (large) drawer: has his shoes. We love Converse, Adidas, Toms, and slip ons from Old Navy and Gap. We just grabbed these bear slip ons from Old Navy - if it has glasses, we will buy it! 


It will be SO helpful to have this all in one spot and my hope is that I can eventually send him over there to get dressed on his own. It will also come in super handy on the rare occasion that daddy has to take him to school - he won't have to wonder what he can and can't wear since it will all be there together. 

In the middle of the wall I hung two hooks for his back pack and his lunchbox. We went with the Pottery Barn Kids Mackenzie size small backpack for Pre-k. (same one as last year) I debated getting the large so it would last longer, but it weighed him down and I knew it wouldn't work. We had it monogrammed with his initials only for safety reasons. 


For his lunch box we got the Pottery Barn Kids Mackenzie Cold Pack style - this decision was easy as it was the only one that fit his Bentgo lunch container, as well as his Sistema snack container and a milk. His water bottle fits in a mesh pocket on the side. I also used a handful of command hooks to hang a wire basket (dollar spot, similar HERE) as a catch all. It holds his water bottle, glasses case, goggles for swimming, a comb, etc. We also keep his SoCozy Boo! Lice spray in there, which we spray on every morning in hopes of avoiding those pesky little critters. A mini cork board in the middle can hold reminder notes, and currently our box tops collection. 



Up at the top of the wall I hung a photo clip frame that I got on clearance at Target a year or so ago, and have been searching for the perfect spot ever since. (similar HERE and I love this rose gold one!) I hung a small dry-erase calendar board up there as a visual reminder of our obligations, and the rest can be used to hang art projects, notes from school, and of course, photos. Jacob requested I add our star garland from Pearl & Jane and I love the little extra sparkle it adds. 



So there you have it! How do you keep sane during back to school? 
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