Art Cart: Organizing Kids' Art and Activity Supplies

It’s the year 2020 and school is likely looking different for your kiddos in some way or another. For us, it meant making the decision to home school Kade (our oldest) for pre-k. We made this decision after hearing that his preschool would be following suit of the school district and doing e-learning for the first 9 weeks.

As a former preschool and kindergarten teacher, I needed a little bit of time to mourn the thought of him getting to experience a normal school year in a classroom (an environment in which he seems to thrive) while making new friends, and building a relationship with a teacher. I value all of these things greatly and truly never saw myself going through with a decision to home school - that is - until it was that decision vs. “e-learning” for pre-k.

I decided that I could have a lot of fun turning our dining room into a classroom for the year, and using what I have from years of teaching to still provide him with a fun, hands-on, exciting learning experience this school year. Our space is not quite finished yet, as we made this decision pretty late in the summer and have decided to not start school until after Labor Day. I’m excited to share more about our home school “classroom” once its finished!

In the mean time, one of the first things I decided I needed in this space was somewhere to organize many of our “go-to” art and activity supplies that would be accessible to both the kiddos and myself. I’d had my eye on these 3-tier carts (I got ours from Target but this one looks to be almost exactly the same) for awhile and knew it would be a great solution. I especially love that it’s on wheels, so it can be easily moved around if we need it closer to the table for a project we’re working on.

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When I bought the cart from Target, I grabbed a bunch of white organizing bins in different sizes and figured I would see what fit where and either return or go back for more if needed. To be honest, I’m the type that can never have enough bins like these so I always end up finding a use for them somewhere! The ones I’m linking seem to be sized similarly to the ones I bought, and they come in a few different sizes you could work with. I also used one of these bins on the top shelf which you can also sometimes find in the Target dollar section as well!

I also came across a small, over-the-door, 4-hook towel holder that I thought I could hang on the side of the cart for things like tape and scissors. It ended up being the perfect fit! I did stick just a little bit of tape underneath each handle to kind of hold it in place on the cart. I couldn’t find one exactly like the one we bought (ours was from Target), but I found these that are hung individually and look very similar- ours has double hooks, too!

Here’s what I hung on the hooks
- kid scissors
- adult scissors
- blue painters’ tape
- rainbow-colored painters’ tape
- masking tape

I decided to “bedazzle” our cart a bit with some fun alphabet and number tape I found in the dollar section of Target. It really didn’t stick very well to the cart so I taped over it with clear packing tape. I found this cute alphabet washi tape that could be fun to stick on there, too, in case you can’t find the tape in the dollar section!

What’s on the cart?

Before getting into what’s on each shelf of our art cart, I want to reiterate that it consists of supplies for ME to use, AND my kiddos. There are certain things that are “only for mommy,” and certain things that are “only for when mommy’s in the room supervising.” We are working on creating these clear boundaries as we approach the start of our school year so that there are no issues with them taking things out that they aren’t supposed to.

Top Shelf:

- paper cutter (for mom’s-use only)
- gel crayons (these are AMAZING)
- 2 glue sticks
- liquid glue
- box of crayons
- stapler (for mom’s-use only)
- hole punch (for mom’s-use only, unless directed otherwise)
- pencils
- extra dry erase markers (I’ll share where the rest of them are later in the post)
- pencil sharpener
- round post-it notes
- note cards
- Mr. Sketch markers (my all-time favorite markers!)
- colored dice
- large dice
- colorful bingo chips
- q-tips
- clear packaging tape (for mom’s-use only)
- do-a-dot markers (we have this set in there, too)
- tempera paint sticks (also AMAZING)
- plastic drink stirrers to use as pointers for tracking print and other activities
- fine motor tweezers
- tongs
- magnetic wand (missing from the cart in the picture because it got snatched by a 4-year-old without me knowing)

Middle Shelf:

- pom poms (two large ziploc baggies full)
- Papermate Flair Pens (my all-time favorite marker pens- these are for mom’s-use only)
- magnetic letters
- magnetic numbers
- bottle cap numbers (saved a bunch of bottle caps and wrote numbers on them with sharpie- since taking these photos, I have decided to move the bottle caps somewhere else, and fill this basket with our other fun magnet sets)

Bottom Shelf:

- markers
- thin markers
- alphabet flashcards
- sight word flashcards
- shapes flashcards
- ink pads
- letter stamps (these are in a case underneath the baskets of craft sticks & colored pencils)
- thick, colored craft sticks
- thin, colored craft sticks
- colored pencils

Also in this corner of the room, I decided to use command strips to attach these metal cookie sheets to the wall to use magnets on. I also put a taller storage basket (this one was from Target but these could also work or you could grab a small plastic waste basket for these taller items, too) to hold our white easel paper rolls that we use like crazy, as well as all of our fun pointers that we will use for calendar time. Since taking these photos, I have decided to move this basket to the other side of the room next to our calendar so I could also keep all of our calendar pieces in it (hoping to share more on this later on). I ended up putting a shallow basket there instead to hold paper/scrap paper for the kids to use for coloring and open-ended crafting.

On the wall to the left of our rolling cart, I decided to hang a large, magnetic, white board. We will use this for magnets, but also for the occasional morning message, and some mini lessons. I brought out some of the fun magnetic erasers (ours were from a teacher store years ago but these are fun too!) I used as a teacher and the kids have been loving them. I was worried about them using the wrong markers on the white board, which is why I chose to put the actual markers toward the back of the rolling cart, and designate a special place for the white board markers.

I stuck a command hook on the wall directly next to the white board and hung a bucket on it to hold the dry erase markers. We have talked a LOT (and are continuing to do so) about how we ONLY use the markers from the bucket on the white board, and they are ONLY to be used on the white space (AKA not on the wall- yikes- we are really testing our 2-year-old’s ability to follow directions). I have also set a boundary that they are not allowed to color on the white board unless I am in the room with them to supervise.

I’m feeling grateful to have all these well-loved supplies and materials organized in to one special little corner that my kiddos and I are both excited about for the school year! I hope this post provided you with some organizational inspo- if so, feel free to pin and share with other friends you think may find it helpful! Happy organizing!