My daughter and I hit the craft store not too long ago, and instead of buying cheap crafts, we bought quality art supplies. I bought a nice set of Prismacolor colored pencils, a set of metallic colored pencils, sketching pencils with fun erasers, two sketch pads, and my favorite…. watercolor pencils.

My daughter loved all of the pretty colors in our new pencils. My son was more excited about the sketching pencils. He also looked up beginner drawing lessons on You-Tube and practiced shading.

 It’s so cool to see how something as simple as new pencils can inspire your kids and add joy to the afternoon!

Here’s another area in our kitchen, dedicated to art supplies.

I often wonder if the kids in my classroom have homes filled with books.

I have a bit of an obsession with books. The picture above is our kids’ bookshelves at home (at least some of them).

 As a kindergarten teacher, my classroom library is organized into thematic bins. I have about 50 little bins in my classroom.

 

I decided to divide the books, in our home library, the same way I do in the classroom.

We had a lot of Dora books, so they got their own bin. Arthur books were pretty popular so they got a bin too. I have bins for a few chapter book series, but the rest of the books are just on the shelves, sorted by category.

 

 

 

 

My daughter has book slings in her room to store some of her favorite books.

How about writing?  Does your home encourage your children to write?  If you build it, they will come.  A home with supplies ready to go for book making, letter writing, or list making, shows that you value writing.  I can’t tell you the joy it bring when I see my kids grab a book and write a story with a friend.

Take a look around.  What does your home say about your values?  What do you need to do to add more love, laughter, and literacy to your home?

Happy organizing!