Take Your Home Back to School!
Updated December 2025
It’s the time of year kids dread… and that parents live for! School bells are ringing again, and everyone is ready to settle into a comfortable routine. Or are they? Does the approach of the school year keep you up at night, wondering how you’re going to keep everyone in line and organized? Fear not… the team at Ernest Homes has some great ideas for getting your home ready for back-to-school season!
Set Up a Special Place for Homework
It’s how your kids will know you mean business! Homework should be a priority every day, and by setting aside a specific place for it, you emphasize just how important it is. It doesn’t need to be large or fancy, but it should be an area that can be kept quiet, away from the distractions of TV, games, or telephones.
If your children are old enough to have them, make sure the homework area is a device-free zone. Create a homework corner in your home office, turn your little-used breakfast nook into study central, or put a comfortable desk in each child’s room. Make sure the area has sufficient lighting and ergonomic seating. For more ideas on using space wisely, explore our new home floor plans.
There’s a File for That…
There are always important papers that come with the school year… permission slips, report cards to be signed, correspondence from the school, tuition bills, and more. Keep them all together in a clearly labeled file or desktop organizer.
Instruct the children to always put anything their teacher gives them into the file as soon as they get home from school. It will help keep everyone up to date with essential paperwork. If your school district uses an online portal, bookmark it on your computer or phone so you can quickly check assignments and announcements.
Don’t Forget Chores
It’s important for your kids to learn how much work it takes to keep a household going. Make sure everyone has at least a job or two to do.
- Younger children can pick up their toys, fill pet food dishes, water plants, collect clothes for laundry baskets, learn to dust, or fetch things for you as you clean.
- Older children can take on kitchen duties such as loading and unloading dishwashers, setting tables, or preparing simple meals. They can also learn to do laundry, vacuum or sweep floors, or take out trash.
All kids should be coached on keeping their rooms tidy as well. Keep a chart with everyone’s assigned duties on display so everyone knows what their responsibilities are. A simple printable or whiteboard chore chart works wonders—sites like Pinterest are full of free templates and inspiration.
Breakfast Made Easy
The days where everyone sits down to a big, homemade breakfast before leaving home are the stuff of retro TV. Keep it speedy, healthy, and easy with quick-to-prepare ideas from the freezer section—just microwave and go! Everyone gets their favorite and you’re out of the house in a snap.
If you’re feeling domestic, bake a big batch of muffins and store each one in the freezer in its own small freezer bag. They’ll heat up just as quickly as the mass-produced offerings. For more healthy breakfast ideas, check out tips from MyPlate.gov.
Uh-Oh… Lunch!
One of the hardest things to do is keep everyone’s lunches straight. Each week, stock up on basics such as bread, peanut butter and jelly, cold cuts or tuna, meal and snack kits, fresh and dried fruit, single-serve packs of nuts, granola bars, and better-for-you cookies.
Reserve an easy-to-reach space on a shelf and/or drawer at the bottom of the fridge for cold products, and use a kitchen cart or a dedicated area of the pantry for other items. By keeping everything in a limited space, you’ll know each morning what you have and what you need. If you’re running low on something essential before week’s end, you won’t be caught off guard.
Children should be tasked with preparing their own lunches as soon as they’re able. By keeping tabs on the offerings they can choose, you know what they’re getting—and they’ll be more likely to eat lunches they helped pack instead of buying less healthy snacks at school.
Many schools offer lunch programs; see if your school allows you to pre-pay for your children’s lunches or manage them online to avoid the “Mom… I need lunch money!” panic. You can learn more about school meal standards from the USDA National School Lunch Program.
Create a Family Calendar
Use a dry erase board, large wall calendar, or shared digital calendar to keep track of everyone’s lessons, appointments, games, and activities for the week. This way when Allison comes home from school, she knows you’re taking James to a 4:30 p.m. eye doctor appointment and she should start dinner so everyone can be fed and out the door at 6:30 for Trey’s basketball game that evening.
It may take a few weeks to create these habits, but once you’re on a roll, you’ll be surprised how organized your back-to-school home can be! For more family-friendly home tips and organizational ideas, visit the Ernest Homes Blog or reach out to us through our Contact Us page.
