5 More Homeschool Mom Hacks to Start Today

Written by Krista Smith.

I’m a plain-Jane sort of a person. I gravitate toward the ordinary. You won’t find any stilettos in my closet and if given the chance to eat something extravagant, I will opt for a cheeseburger. Every time. The same goes for how I manage my home. When faced with the mountain of daily tasks that come with homekeeping while homeschooling, I prefer simple solutions. I've already shared seven of my favorite everyday life-hacks. Here are five more.



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Laundry Detergent Scuzz

If you’re using liquid laundry detergent like me, you’ll know what I mean when I say, I love liquid detergent, but I don’t like the scuzzy sticky, remnants of half-dried detergent oozing all over the laundry measuring cup OR dribbling down the sides of the bottle.

One fateful day, I accidentally dropped the cup full of soap down in the washer and thought, Forget it. I’m not digging that slimy thing out of there. I’ll dig it out after the load is done. And when the load was finished and I was transitioning it to the dryer…behold! There was my cup at the bottom of the washer…scuzz-free…and dry!

Hallelujah! I’ve never looked back. That cup now gets tossed in with every load of laundry, ensuring that I don’t have to have smears of detergent all over me or anything else in my laundry room.

Column Folding

In the past, whenever I’d get done folding laundry, I’d put the giant pile of folded stuff on my kids' beds. But what ended up happening was, my sweeties would struggle to sort them and get them into their proper drawers without accidentally unfolding a bunch of them in the process or getting wrong things into wrong drawers. (We wear a lot of t-shirts as pajamas around here--but they are not t-shirts that I necessarily want them to wear ‘round town.)

I knew there had to be a better way. So, I began sorting a little differently while I was folding. Since there are five of us in my family, I started making 5 columns of laundry as I folded (plus a miscellaneous column for towels, bibs, etc.)

PJ packets get placed on the top of each person's column. Next down the line comes shirts, then pants, then undies and socks. When each person’s column is completely folded, I take them in their sorted form to that person’s bedroom and lay them out in a column on their bed. This has allowed them to see clearly what is a pajama piece and what is not. Since all 8 of the shirts are going into the shirt drawer at once, everything ends up in the drawer in an orderly fashion now, and mama never has to refold.

Safe and Effective Cleaner

Several years ago we had the stomach flu fly through our house, not once, but twice. Back-to-back. Even though I felt like I’d done everything possible to disinfect our home, we just couldn't shake it. This got me wondering how effective my store bought cleaner really was. Plus, it was right around that same time that I began to get serious about keeping nasty chemicals out of our home. My favorite lemon-scented cleaner was one of my last hold-outs.

That being said, I just wasn’t sold on the old “vinegar and water” craze that seemed to be recommended by everyone for every purpose. So I did some research. And what I found out was that in actual trials, homemade cleaners were just about as effective on some germs as water (YUCK!). But to my surprise, even bleach couldn’t kill norovirus (stomach flu). And this is when I finally discovered what has become my new cleaner for just about every surface and purpose in my house. The best part...it's dirt cheap and safe for even children to use.

"What is this magical cleaner?" you ask. Hydrogen peroxide!

I now buy large bottles of peroxide for about a dollar a bottle and pour it (along with a generous squirt of Dawn dish soap) into a peroxide squirt bottle--a bottle made of brown, opaque plastic. (You can find them in the first aid department of most stores.) My new GO TO peroxide solution cleans my entire kitchen and bathroom and is the only thing I’ve found that effectively cleans stainless steel without leaving streaks (when used with a cotton washcloth). A note of caution, however, if you get too much of it on your hands it can tingle. So make sure you and your children use gloves or thoroughly wash your hands after using it.

Rainbow Closet

Years ago, I got tired of not being able to find XYZ shirt hanging in my closet. Annoying. I’d always organized my closet by sleeve length/season: summer short sleeves up front, winter longs sleeves in the back. But then I got a clever idea! What if I put my clothes in rainbow order? I’d never have to guess where my favorite blue shirt was again! And I could easily find the cream-colored sweater I needed to pair with it. Now every clothes closet in my home is set up this way, making my kids superstars at ROY-G-BIV! Brilliant!

Window Grid

Do you know what job I especially don’t like around here? Washing my windows only to find that they are streaky the next time the sun shines through them! Know what I like even less? Not being able to tell whether I need to scrub the insides or the outsides again to get rid of the streaks. But, I've found that if I wipe the insides of my windows from left to right, and the outsides from top to bottom, when the streaks show up, I instantly know which side of the pane to clean again.

See? No glitz or glam here. But, hey, three cheers for some sanity-makers that don’t break the bank or require a Ph.D. to navigate--just five, plain old tips which I hope will help you and yours as much as they've helped me and mine.

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Krista Smith is blessed to be the mother of three beautiful children and is privileged to homeschool them using an eclectic variety of methods. She has a deep and abiding love for tan-colored coffee, spending time with her family, and seeing children find their forever homes through adoption. But above all of these things, Krista is, first and foremost, a lover and follower of Jesus Christ. So, may the Lord and His Gospel get every ounce of honor, glory, and credit for anything she writes, says, or does.

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