“If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers.” – Edgar W. Howe… Aren’t we all looking for new tips and tricks for managing your household during the busy school year? The transitions are always really tough for me – I get used to the school year routine, then suddenly it’s summer break, which throws me all off kilter. And now, as I’m just getting used to our summer groove – it’s time to gear back up for school days again. I’m a little {ok, my family might say a lot!} OCD – and thrive on organization and routines. So, as I create my new back to school daily schedule, I thought I’d share some of my own favorite tips with you guys, to help inspire your new fall planning too.

Organizing School Supplies and Building a Homework Station

Right now is the perfect time to stock up on any type of office, kids craft, and other paper supplies you’ll need for the year. I just took advantage of the super cheap school supplies available to fill my craft box with tons of .50 cent boxes of crayons and markers, my desk drawers with paper clips, pens, and notebooks, and the big kids homework stations with new binders, pencils, and notebook paper. Once you stock up – build a great homework station for the kids to help get them excited about studying. Let them decorate bulletin boards by gluing cool little trinkets to push pins, use scrapbook supplies to spruce up some tin cans for pencil holders, and get a comfy chair to sit in. Then kids have their own space to do their work each day.

Create a Household Binder

While you’re out shopping for those great discount school supplies, check out the super cool designs they have for binders, notebooks, and divider folders too. Use these to put together a super helpful household binder to keep track of everything during the hectic school year. I use free printable calendars, and make a tab for each month. Then I add in my meal planning sheets and grocery lists, a zipped pouch for coupons, weekly to-do lists, and this time of year I just LOVE the printable School Days Kit too. It includes things like cute lunchbox notes, great schedule sheets for your whole family, and Important School Year Dates to Remember, as well as the important school and parent phone numbers you’ll need all year too. For more great free printables to build your household binder with, check out my Pinterest board filled with all of my faves.

Displaying Kids School Artwork Collections

Kids create a LOT of great artwork and school projects all year long – and it can be awfully hard to decide what to do with it all! I have a few tips on controlling paper clutter you can read – but you also want to make sure you save some great pieces to display in your home too, since it makes kids feel really proud to see their own work hanging up. You can laminate drawings to use as kids placemats, make a little clothesline type display on the wall where you can rotate out new pieces, save some in clear plastic dividers in a binder, or even frame them to decorate the playroom. And as kids get older, the binder method works great for saving favorite book reports that get high marks, funny stories they write in English classes, or awards they receive during the years. You can use dividers to mark off each year, and it’s a great scrapbook to share with them when they graduate. {Photo credit.}

Make a Lunch Station

So many moms say that packing lunches is one of the more hectic parts of their morning routine. This is also related to the dreaded, “Mom, I’m sooooo hungry!” whine that you hear as soon as they get home each afternoon. To make packing lunches and grabbing snacks much easier, create stations – We have 2 pantry baskets filled with pre-packaged snacks like goldfish, teddy grahams, granola bars, or fruit snacks. I also have 2 kitchen baskets in the fridge filled with healthy goodies like string cheese, yogurt, veggies or fruits in baggies, and ranch divided into little tupperware dipping bowls. There are tons of healthy, easy to grab snacks you can keep on hand, and just prep it all on Sunday to be ready for your week ahead. Then you can just grab a few pieces each morning to fill your lunch bags, and be out the door in a flash. Awesome, right?

“The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.” – Sydney J. Harris

Use these tips to help you plan better routines for your own upcoming school year days now, so you can get off to a great start. If you’re looking for more fun ideas, check out my Back to School idea board on Pinterest. And share with me – what are your best tips for being organized and managing your household during the busy school year?

{Disclosure: Compensation was provided by Kraft Foods via Glam Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Kraft Foods.}