We are very fortunate to have an actual school room in our home. When we made the commitment to homeschool, we converted our dining room into a school room and haven’t looked back. It was a great decision to give up that rarely-used dining room and create a room that would benefit all of us on a daily basis.
Where Do The Little People Do Their Work?
While we don’t try “to do public/private school at home”, we did want our children to have their own desks. Everyone needs their own space to store their own supplies, and a traditional school desk fits that idea beautifully.
We bought these desks from a school that was closing. They were $15 a piece – they have tons of years left in them, so I thought that was a steal.
My 5yo and 3yo usually sit beside each other near the window:
My 7yo and the baby’s desk usually sit together in the middle of the room. I need close access to them both for different reasons. 😉 Does the baby (20 months) ever sit in her desk, you ask? Actually, she does. She loves to color and glue and she can usually be occupied in her desk for 5-8 minutes. Not bad for a little person!
Where Is Mama’s Space?
Teachers/Mamas need a spot for their things as well, so we purchased this long table at the same school sale where we bought the desks. It takes up a large amount of space in our small room, but I don’t think I could do without it. I use it with my kiddos – we spread out file folder games, do puzzles, play with pattern blocks, or go over spelling words.
My desk always contains several items. In the blue bin on the far left, I keep the notebooking pages we’ll use for the week, our file folders where I store my children’s work for the week, and my clipboard which holds my schedule.
In the middle of the desk is my silver container which holds our file folder games and pens/pencils/scissors in the front compartment.
On the right side of the desk in the pink basket is our small-but-growing collection of Busy Bags. (Side Note: I just hosted a Busy Bag party – so much fun!)
Where Do You Store Your Homeschool Materials?
We use the expedit Bookshelf from Ikea. And oh my is it a fabulous shelf. In a later post, I’ll write about how our shelf is organized.
I bought the plastic blue shelf inserts to go along the bottom row of the bookshelf. They house all of our crafty supplies: glue, pipe cleaners, paint.
Because the bins are heavy when they’re full, the baby can’t pull out everything and mark up the walls.
Because she would never do that. Sigh.
(See all of those marks above her Little People? The bottom of every wall in our downstairs looks like that. No, I’m not kidding.)
So this is where we’ll do a lot of our school this year! We migrate around the house to the dining room table and the office, but we mostly try to stick around our school room. We all love the room and like learning together.
Do you have a school room? What’s your favorite thing about it?
Looking for more school rooms? Head on over to iHomeschool Network’s Not Back-to-School Blog Hop for more ideas!
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http://pinterest.com/LaurenVHill/busy-bag-ideas/
Mama’s Ultimate Guide to Occupying Toddlers During School Time
This looks like a great space! I love your bookshelf! I am hoping to add something similar in the near future to our space. We don’t have a room but with just one kiddo we found some space in the family room. I can’t wait to get started in a week 🙂
It sounds as though your tiny girl has a creative bent! I have repainted so many walls over the years with all of my little artists!
“…a creative bent!”
I love how you put that in such a positive light! 😉 And yes, she does. It will be interesting to see how she is when she’s older!
Wonderful room!!! I love that you have a spot of your very own!!! Like you said…we all need our own space!!
Thanks for sharing!!
Love the Expedit shelves – best investment I ever made. Our room used to be our dining room too. Have a great school year!
Yes, I love them too! Totally worth the money, in my opinion.
Love that book shelf! We may need one of those in the future. We don’t really have a school room, just a big ol’ desk in the girl’s room. I think I have finally come to the place where I have excepted my relaxed homeschool approach! Ha! It has taken me a couple of years to finally get “settled”. Next thing you know I am going to be telling you that we are unschooling…..I’m just kidding. 🙂
Miss you lady, and your school room looks fabulous!
Ha! It’s so funny how we’re all different! ‘Relaxed homeschool’ makes me antsy. 😉 But that IS the great thing about homeschooling – we can each do as we see is best for our own families.
xoxo
Love your room! And I *totally* understand having the lower 1/3 of the walls decorated for me…. 😉 Ha ha!
Thanks, Sherri! I try not to fret about it too much. I know that one day those crayon marks won’t be there and I’ll be sad!
We have a whiteboard in our dining room! One of the best purchases I have made for school. Our dining room table is cleaned multiple times a day since we do school, art, and all meals there! My little ones love to mark the walls as well 🙂 Just a fact with creative kids I guess. Our school supplies are a mix of on the bookshelf and in the computer desk hutch. We don’t have any extra room in our home to make a school room…unless we convert the garage which my husband has already claimed as his “workshop”.
I could not agree more about the whiteboard! LOVE that thing! It’s huge and some consider it an eyesore, but it was totally worth the money. We use it several times throughout the day.
And it occupies the little girls for a few minutes each day, which makes it even better. 😉
I love your shelves! I wish I had more of those myself. And, I have found that a “magic eraser” will take just about any kind of mark off of just about anything – just in case you ever want to get those marks off the walls. 🙂 My toddler will scribble on anything in reach, so the magic eraser is our best friend.
Oh the Magic Eraser – yes, we are definitely friends. 😉
Awesome space! I’m dying to know where you found that great whiteboard?!?!
Hmm. You know, I don’t remember. We ordered it online and I do recall that the shipping was only $50. And it was brought in on a big Mack truck….down my little cul-de-sac. It was bizarre!! I’ll see if I can dig up the info on it.
I love that big cube storage area.
Love the idea of having the week’s notebooking pages on top of the desk ~ I usually leave them in the file cabinet.
Thanks for sharing, even the scribbles on the walls!
Our walls look EXACTLY the same. Our toddlers must use the same interior designer! 😉 Love the room.
The room looks fantastic – so light and airy! As for the unplanned wall designs from your little one, a magic eraser should take that right off! Best of luck to you as you begin a new year!
Looks like your children have a very nice space! Great idea to set up a space for yourself too!
Saw that your little one enjoys marking on the walls. Back when mine were tiny and we lived in Virginia, my sons liked to do artwork on our walls, so finally, my hubby painted one of our walk- in closets and they could color on the walls in there or they could use magnets on the wall, as he painted the walls with magnetic paint. Once they realized they could use the magnets, they preferred to use those over coloring on the walls!
Well, have a happy homeschool year!
Colleen