Our School Supplies Organizer

Last year, when school started up in the fall and was a hybrid of online and in-person school, I knew we’d need a place to keep all the school things.

It turns out. . . even when school WASN’T hybrid, I needed a place to keep all the school things and this school cart kept my life so much more organized this past year.

It was so great to have a space for school-issued laptops to live (and charge!), a space for all the papers that came home or needed to go back to school, and a home for pens, pencils, headphones and other school miscellaneous.

In our last house, the school cart lived in my office (which was just off the main living and dining room) next to my desk, so it was very easy to grab things as they were leaving for school or when they came home from school.

I don’t know yet where we’ll put the school cart in our new house but I DO know that we’re definitely going to find a spot for it, because it was so great to have a landing spot for all the papers that came home, laptops that needed to be charged every day, and all the other miscellaneous school supplies.

Here’s how we set up our school cart:

Our School Supplies Organizer

The Cart. Our cart is from Staples and they no longer sell it, but there are a LOT of good options out there from Target, IKEA, Wayfair or other retailers – I especially love this one!
Individual paper bins for each girl. The worst part of school is all the papers that come home or need to go back to school. Having one for each of my girls made life so much easier – they made an easy place to keep library books that were headed back to school, signed forms, math books or workbooks, and also they kept all the papers they wanted to keep long-term there so they were all in one place for the end of the school year so I could make their school books. Plastic ones are better in my opinion because they don’t get banged up.
A laptop divider. All three of my big girls had school-issued laptops last year, so it was really nice to have a clear place for them to go after school or on the days they didn’t need them. It’s also perfect for holding tablets.
A charging strip. This was an absolute lifesaver, since the girls all needed to have fully charged laptops most days. I used mounting tape to keep it in place and then just plugged it into the wall and it could charge multiple tablets or laptops at once.
A pens/pencils/markers organizer. This was super convenient because the girls could always find a pen and I always had a clear spot to put. The girls pulled this out almost every day to use for coloring or drawing and then could easily put everything away.
What I wish I’d had: A bin for headphones. I didn’t really think about how MUCH my girls would be using their headphones this past year, and I should have picked up a small bin where headphones could go in and stay.