Decluttering Your Homeschool
I’ve been working on decluttering each area of my house one by one (I’m working my way through this book, if you want some step-by-step hand-holding.)
Guess what? Even though we’re right in the middle of the school year, I’m finding that our homeschool curriculum needed a little cleaning out too.
Homeschoolers most likely have many of the same reasons for hanging onto school books as they do about hanging onto clothes, including:
- You really like it (it’s just not the right fit)
- You paid a lot for it (but it’s not the right fit)
- You think you’ll use it eventually
- You just forgot you had it!
Do you have some books or curriculum that just aren’t working for you? Just like we should let go of the things in our closet that are simply taking up space, we need to learn to let go of homeschool materials that we aren’t using either.
Here are some of the benefits of letting go:
- You don’t feel guilty for not using it every time you look at it
- It frees up space for the things you truly love
- It makes your school area much easier to keep clean when there is not extra stuff sitting around
- You can be a blessing by passing it on to someone who needs it (or you can bless your family by selling it and using the money for something that works better for you)
*Now to be completely honest, I’m not much of a “completely get rid of it” person, simply because we have a lot of storage space in our attic. I can declutter my house, but still keep things I think I very well may use in the future. I have bookshelves neatly organized in the attic by grade level and subject. When I am shopping for the next year’s curriculum, I always shop my attic first because what didn’t work for one child may work perfectly for another and I already have it on hand and easy to find. I do get rid of things if I have duplicates or if I know quite positively that it’s not something we’ll likely use again.
If you don’t have the space to keep things and an easy way to actually find them when you want them, I would recommend getting rid of them when you know you’re not going to use them and starting fresh when you need something new.
