Color Coding Your Homeschool: An Amazing Organization Tool You Need!

Color coding your homeschool saves you time, space, and your sanity! Organize your homeschool through color coded homeschool supplies.

I saunter into the classroom area hours after the school day is done. As I dodge binders and notebooks on the floor, I ask who they belong to. The response?

Not Me!

I glance around the room and notice cups adorning every table. Again, I ask who they belong to. The response?

Not Me!

In the kids’ bathroom, wet towels are strewn all over the floor. I question who left them on the floor. I bet you’ll never guess the response!

Not Me!

Oh, you guessed it, huh? That annoying little Not Me kid must visit your house too. All that little bugger does is make messes!

How do we combat against Not Me and keep our homeschool, and house, organized?

Through color coding, one of the easiest to implement and most effective to use organization hacks out there. An organized homeschool is a relaxed homeschool.

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What is color coding in your homeschool?

Color coding is simply assigning each of your children a color. Then you use that color to buy materials for your homeschool. Color coding helps you and your children stay organized and also saves you time.

My children’s colors are purple, blue, green, and red. Luckily they all have different favorite colors, so we just used those. Think of colors that you can easily find in the materials you use. If you have a large number of children, then perhaps you’ll want to add a pattern along with colors. You could add washi tape to distinguish between items as well.

Why do I need to color coding in my homeschool?

• Time saver
• Space saver
• Sanity saver

1. Save yourself time by assigning each child a color for your homeschool. Instead of having to open a binder to see who it belongs to, a simple glance at a blue binder will immediately tell you its owner. You won’t have to spend time writing all of your kids’ names on all of their materials.
2. You can save space in your teacher planner by using colored pens instead of writing your kids’ names for each subject.
3. Save your sanity by knowing which child to call and clean up their mess!

When you are homeschooling multiple children, you absolutely need a strategy to stay organized! Color coding is the secret!

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What should you color code in your homeschool?

How do you decide what to color code? Think about materials like folders and notebooks all of your kids have of their own. You can also think about items they fight over. Remember you want to save time, space and your sanity! Anything that will make that happen, you will want to color code.

School Supplies

You can easily color code many of your school supplies. Items I color code for my kids include binders, notebooks, folders, and pencil cases.

Organization Helpers

Along with color coding your school supplies, you can also color code organizational materials like baskets. Additionally, washi tape can be applied to differentiate materials that are the same color. For example, my kids use caddies that are all white, so washi tape can not only let us know who each one belongs to, but also make them look nicer. Colored caddies work, too.

Lesson Plans

Plan books never seem to have enough space when you teach multiple children. I don’t want to waste a precious inch of space by writing my kids’ names for each subject. Not to mention the time it takes to write several kids’ names down for each of the 5-6 subjects they do everyday!

How can you save time and space lesson planning? You can color code your plans! I write each child’s lessons in their color in my plan book. For example, my daughter’s lessons are all written in purple, while the boys are in blue, green and red, respectively. My boys have some subjects they do together, so those are written in orange. Subjects all of the kids share, like music, art, and foreign language, are pink. Not only does this make it easier to fit everyone’s lessons in, but it also makes for a pretty planner!

Do you need help choosing your curriculum for each subject? Check out this related post to find a review of our favorite homeschool curriculum.

Are there other items you can color code in your home?

Absolutely! In fact, we were color coding for years before we started homeschooling. When my older three were all five and under, I got so tired of the fighting over the blue cup or the yellow bowl. That’s when we decided to assign each child a color and only allow the kids to use items in their assigned color.

What can you color code around the house?

The possibilities for color coding items around the house are endless. In my house, we color code cups, plates and waterbottles, towels and toothbrushes, and even Kindle covers. We also color code the kids’ laundry baskets and hampers, and they keep their clothing in the same colored storage baskets that I mentioned above as organization helpers.

We even color code the Easter eggs in Grandma’s Easter egg hunt. It makes the hunt a lot more fun because we can hide the older kids’ eggs in harder-to-find or higher places.

Ban little Not Me from your house for good! Color coding your homeschool is a great way to organize your homeschool to save time, space and your sanity! If you aren’t doing this time-saving organizational hack yet, make it a priority in your homeschool planning now! Assign your kids a color today, and don’t buy anymore school supplies without color coding.