School Room (2013-2014)

This is our fifth year homeschooling, and our third school room. 

That’s a lot of moving around school stuff!

While we do use this room to do some of our school work, a lot of our group stuff is done at the dining room table.  We are lucky in this house to have the space for an official room, as well as lots of other spaces for the kids to work.

Here’s the basic set up of how we are organized for now, and how the space works for us.  I always like seeing how others set up their own spaces, especially when we were first getting started.  If you are new to homeschooling, don’t think for a minute that you need to have a school room to make it work.  You don’t.  We use it because we are blessed to have it, in addition to a large storage closet in the basement that holds the rest of our “stuff”.  We truly use our home as a place to teach and train our kids, rather than just doing school at home.  Whatever your style or space, creating an environment where learning is fun is an important part of successful homeschooling.  That, and a little bit of organization can go a long way!




We use a couple of portable pantry’s and a 9-cube shelf for most of our “everyday” things.  One is full of Language Arts/Reading materials, Math manipulatives, and Science tools.  The other is full of curriculum: Science, History, Spanish, Readers, misc. workbooks, and Preschool Letter-of-the-Week stuff.

You can see Olivia’s Preschool workbox system on the end with our paper shelf on top of it.  On top of the 9 cube shelf sits the kids’ individual school supply baskets and their Calendar Journals.



The other side of the room is a work table and our bookshelf, which is crammed full of our favorite books.  Above that, our IKEA picture hanging system.



Every school needs a mascot, and ours comes in the form of a cat named Duck.  He regularly sleeps in our school room, sunning himself under the big window.  That makes him a basic component to our set-up, right? 



Here’s a closer view of the main wall.  The far left is our “Circle Time” corner, with our Calendar and two flip charts (see Spanish one here for printables).  Above that some more IKEA organization shelves and cups for community supplies like paint brushes, paint rollers, fancy and regular scissors, glue sticks, markers, and a few other items.

The rolling file/file box is full of our file folder games, Bible curriculum, and themed preschool files. 






This front wall has Olivia’s Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree and our pocket chart.  A map of the United States is a fun new addition from a friend this summer.



We have a cozy little half closet that hosts our craft supplies, sensory items, and even more preschool tools.  Another closet in the basement holds the rest that gets rotated out on a weekly basis.



If it looks like organized chaos, that’s exactly the look I was going for….

Believe it or not, there is a rhyme and reason to the closet organization.  We use a very multisensory approach with our schooling, which is why we have so much stuff!  Most of my kids are “hands-on” learners.  I’m always on the lookout for fun new tools to use to enrich their schooling experience.  I find almost all of our things at thrift stores, consignment sales, and garage sales and have only bought a couple of things full price through the years.  We are at a point now, that I’m not buying too much anymore.  Probably in part to our youngest being in preschool, and partly because we are running out of space.  Really, it’s too much stuff, but we do use it all.  I guess I’m kind of just a nerd that way!

Want to see our other school rooms?

2012-2013

2011-2012