S8: E162 Back to School Organization: Home Edition

Afternoon Ti Podcast

Season Eight

Episode 162

Summer Health Series

Back to School Organization: Home Edition

There’s a little less than a month remaining until I return to school for teacher inservice week.  Some of you may be returning back to school in early August or as late as early September.m So while it may seem early to talk about getting back to school, now is actually a great time to begin mentally and physically preparing ourselves.  One way to do this is with organization. 

Organization can help us set the mood for what is coming up.  It can help us prepare in as many ways as we can before school starts back so that we are less anxious, less stressed, and more settled.  I’m going to break down back to school organization ideas over several episodes beginning with home organization.  Before I can tackle my school environment for the new school year, I find it helpful to get my girls and my needs at home settled first.  This includes everything from school supplies to lunch meals, clothing items, and resetting former routines or creating new ones.

Home Organization

1. Purchasing backpacks, lunch boxes, and water bottles early to mid-summer.   Decide where they are stored during the school year.  Do you have a mudroom?  A space in teh living room?  In the kids’ bedrooms?  Preparing a routine ahead of time can help you manage the routine when school begins.  Have in mind where the lunch boxes and backpacks will live and where the water bottles will go for washing.  Filling up water bottles the night before can save time in the morning.  And more on lunch ideas in a few minutes.  Expect that they likely won’t go there consistently unless there’s a system in place and all of you have experienced the system in the first few days or weeks when school begins.  And even then it’s not going to be perfect, but it’s something you can come back to and having a routine plan truly helps!

   
   

BACKPACK RECOMMENDATIONS

1. NorthFace Recon or Borealis - expensive but lifetime warranty

2. Pottery Barn Teen - usually have a good sale closer to August each year… often go last year’s styles for less and these bags have always lasted several years so there wasn’t a need to buy a new one each year.

3. Nike Sports Backpacks - got the Brasilia (one in medium and another in extra large)

Do your kids follow an A/B schedule at school?  Try two backpacks - one for A Day and one for B day.  Doing this for both girls this year. Makes it easier to keep things together for each schedule.

WATER BOTTLE RECOMMENDATIONS

1. 20oz water bottles we purchased for the girls 

2. Julia’s favorite sports water bottle - she actually brought this to school and soccer - huge, but she stayed hydrated for sure

3. 64oz water bottle I purchased for myself on Amazon

   
   

LUNCH BOX RECOMMENDATIONS

We’ve used everything from random Walmart boxes to store bags (like Lululemon or Athleta) to Pottery Barn teen matching lunch box/backpack combos.  Haven’t fallen in love with any of them… still on the hunt for one that we love.

2. School supplies - decide what items to splurge on and what to save on.  We’ll spend money on pencils, crayons, and markers - the good ones.  Crayola and Ticonderoga all the way.  Shop the Amazon sales when possible - there’s some really good ones! I’m also a huge believer in the Staples binders.  They last significantly longer than other binders.  Saves you time going back midway through the year for new binders and costs about the same (1 binder all year vs 2-3 binders all year).  I’ll save on most everything else - folders, notebook paper, composition books, scissors, and even handheld pencil sharpeners.

3. Lunches - if I’m going to be making lunches throughout the year, which I am, we’ve found it helpful to create homemade lunchable versions for our girls that included fresh fruit (apples, grapes, strawberries, bananas), carrots, cheese, ham, pepperoni, salami, ritz crackers, chips and yogurt.  We prepped everything on Sundays so that it was all ready to go for the entire week.  It was simply grab and go for the girls all through the week.  Sometimes I’d also eat this, but most of the time I did a combo of fruit, yogurt, granola, almonds, pretzels, and some kind of protein bar or I’d bring leftovers.  We also look for food items that can withstand sitting out for several hours and don’t require a microwave at school so that they actually have time to eat their lunch rather than waiting in line.

4. Clothes - I enjoy having a new first day of school outfit to wear.  Otherwise I try to find items that work well together and can be worn often.  I’ve realized how many clothing items I’ve held on to that either don’t fit or aren’t worn and I’ve spent time cleaning our closet out this summer.  Let go of what you won’t wear.  I’m enjoying some empty space in the closet and drawers and hoping to be strategic about what I actually need for this upcoming year.  If you clean out your clothing, you might give it time to figure out what items you’d like to add to your wardrobe and purchase the specific things you are needing when you find them - no immediate rush.  Or if you are in need of new clothes, think about what would work best for you this school year and then choose which items you want to purchase.

   
   

I do have a dress recommendation that works for all heights and sizes.  One of my teammates wore the cutest dress ever to a wedding that our entire team attended this summer.  We gushed over it and she shared the link to purchase it.  And all of us bought the same dress - most of us got it in two different colors or patterns.  I purchased it in the long sleeve solid black and then in geometric navy.  It’s perfect for teaching and super comfortable.  Lots of versions, but I love the long sleeved versions.  It’s $28 and I’ll post the link in the show notes.

5. Routines - The first routine that our family always has to reset at the start of the school year is our sleeping routine.  Every summer I’m determined that we’ll stick closely to our school schedule - bed around 9pm and waking around 5:30 or 6am for the girls.  And every summer we fail this miserably - currently going to bed around 11-12 and waking up around 8-9.  I have yet to figure out the best way to get back into a more typical school year routine for sleeping at the end of summer.  We’ve done cold turkey - where we just start waking up early the first day of school and slog through the week… adjusting our bedtimes at night all week as our bodies give out earlier due to exhaustion.  We’ve tried resetting our schedules a week or two before school begins by waking up earlier and trying not to nap so that we can reset our night time sleeping.  After reading the book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker and learning about how beneficial it is for us to have a regular sleep routine where we go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time - regardless of whether it’s a weekend, holiday, or school day - we have begun our school nighttime and sleeping routines already.  This isn’t to shame you if you aren’t doing this already - just merely to share what we’re trying.  And I saw trying because it’s taking effort.  Knowing I could stay up later is a temptation and knowing I could sleep in later is also tempting.  But I’m wanting to see if by setting our sleeping into a more consistent pattern will bring an easier transition to the school year so we’re trying it.

A second routine is adding back in sports, music ensemble, and extracurricular activities.  Times of games and rehearsals.  And figuring out the new routine for what each member of the family is involved in.  This affects dinners, night time routines, all of life.

A third routine to consider are your workouts - before or after work?  Planning out a week of workouts or setting specific days of the week around already scheduled rehearsals, practices, games… deciding why you find working out important enough to consider it during the school year can help you keep it a priority.

A final routine to consider is your downtime - time away from teaching, required after-school events, and house demands.  As vital as working is, resting is every bit as important.  Where can you find time in your day or week to do things you enjoy - even if you’re only able to find 30 minutes at some point in the week, schedule in time to rest.  Add it to your calendar as though it was a meeting.

Setting up some areas of home organization can make morning routines before school go smoother and after-school routines more predictable.  Organizing how you want lunches to work and what kinds of lunches you want to prepare saves time and energy.  And making choices about how to fit in rest - even in small amounts - and workouts can help you stay active and energized as you return to teaching this fall.

Join me for the next ‘Let’s Get Organized’ Back to School episode where we’ll be focusing on classroom organization!  Hope you’ll join me then.