Color-coded Kids
For homeschooling parents, sometimes your teaching area can look like a storm ripped through an office supply store. There are many ideas for organization. One that has worked for us is color-coding our kids for their school supplies. We are going into our eighteenth year homeschooling, and we have been using this from the very beginning.
Each child gets assigned a color. When you purchase scissors, pencil cases, composition notebooks, folders, three-ring binders, etc., you get them in “their” color. With this system, if a child leaves their stuff around the house, you know who it belongs to and where it needs to be returned.
To make life easier on yourself, start with the primary colors of red, blue, yellow, followed by green. School supplies are most frequently produced in these colors. Pink, purple, and orange are also options, but not as common. In our household, I didn’t assign black or gray to anyone. Many times, there will be materials in these colors, but I only use them when the child’s designated color is unavailable.
What happens when someone “hates” their color? In our family, child #6 was a girl and pink was the next available popular color to get supplies. When she was young, she loved pink in all shades. In the middle school years, she despised the color. At that point, I used my back-up plan and bought a few more things in gray and black. When pink was the only one available, she used it. Eventually, she requested I purchase things in pink again, and that was the end of the grumbles.
In our family of ten children, we didn’t use ten different colors. Mimicking our “Kid of the Day” dilemma (see previous blog post), we doubled up from the oldest children. For us, the line-up was: child #1 - blue, #2 - red, #3 - green, #4 - yellow, #5 - orange, #6 - pink, #7 - purple, # 8 - blue, #9 - red, and #10 - green. By the time the younger kids were old enough for school, the older ones had graduated from our homeschool and were away at college.
Colorful sticker dots are another way the color-coded system can work in your home. If you have several children using the same type of workbook, put their color dot on the cover in the upper right-hand corner. Everyone knows what their color is and sorting out a mess of books on the dining room table after a day of school is easier. No need to flip the cover open to see who owns the book. Even young, pre-reading children can help with separating books into piles.
Colorful masking tape has also helped us. Wrap a piece around the end of each marker. It will help later to keep track of their materials. It’s a little time consuming, but it can be well worth it. Children who are older than preschool age can do the job themselves. We do this as part of our “back to school prep” one day in the summer. You could do the same. Set everyone up with their tape and markers, put on a fun movie, and make some snacks. It’s a lovely activity to do on a rainy afternoon. When school starts, the children are all set, and you didn’t lose sleep wrapping tape on markers and pencils.
How did this system come into being? Our first two children were twins, and the girls looked identical. My husband and I could tell them apart in person. Photos? Well, that was another story. It was nearly impossible. We dressed daughter #1 in blue, purple, or green. Daughter #2 got red, pink, or yellow. If they were wearing identical outfits, we didn’t adhere to the color thing. When they were wearing clothing in a matching style in two different colors, we stuck to the system. It helped family members and friends identify the girls at gatherings. We didn’t insist our daughters wear those colors when they got past the preschool stage. I thank my past self when I look at old photos and can confidently identify the girls. The ladies are now in their twenties, and their favorite colors to wear are still the ones we designated.
The system developed with the next three children who were all boys. We allocated single colors for things such as sippy cups, toothbrushes, and cloth bags for their stuff to do in the car. When we began our homeschool journey, we kept the assigned colors they had since they were babies for their school supplies.
In some elementary schools, they use different color notebooks or folders for various subjects. For my homeschool, I buy different kinds of notebooks, all in their color. There are different patterns for composition notebooks. Sometimes you need to shop in different stores to get a variety. The child can pick which one they want to use for a subject. I’m not picky about that. My kids also have some ownership in the process. Most have said something like this: “The one with the blue squiggles is for spelling, the blue checks is my science book, and this regular blue one is my journal.”
As a mom of a large family, color-coding my kids for purchasing school supplies has helped over the years with organizing and clean up during our homeschool day.
I hope this helps your household. Thank you for reading.