Our Homeschool Learning Spaces
Monday, August 12, 2013 at 5:00AM
I tend to get a bit envious when it's schoolroom week for the Not Back To School Blog Hop.
It seems that homeschool bloggers everywhere spruce up their beautiful classrooms to share with the world.
What I want to know is this: How long do those rooms stay perfect and beautiful? AND How many people really have a dedicated space just for homeschool?
I want to encourage you today with a peek into my home.
We are blessed with a home that is larger than what we probably need. It's not huge, but certainly enough for our family of 4.
I've tried to keep one room as the schoolroom before, and it DID NOT work.
I also have to confess that it is difficult for me to stay organized. I am a creative person by nature, and there are books and learning materials all over our home.
I'm organized in the ways that count, but I gave up long ago trying to live up to the picture perfect homeschool room standard.
For our family, learning occurs all over our house, so I've learned over time to set up a little bit of homeschool in almost every room of the house. It works for us, and I'd like to share that with you today.
This year we had one specific requirement to meet: a private space for Anna to complete her Challenge A coursework each week.
The Upstairs Learning Area
We have a large room over our garage - a bonus room. This room is all purpose: family computer, sleeper sofa and entertainment center, bookshelves, a homeschool storage closet, and Anna's study area.
It's the furthest room from our kitchen/family room, so it's quiet.
Anna spends the majority of her time here this year so she can complete her work in total quiet. She also uses the computer for her Saxon Math lessons.
This used to be nothing but a homeschool room, but I found that it was hard for me to accomplish the household tasks each day and stay on top of the children as I was running up and down the stairs.
This room is also where the boys retreat to watch their baseball games and where sleepovers are held, so it's really an all purpose room.
In my ideal world I would have my basement finished, but that's one of those things that was put on hold many years ago when we made the decision to homeschool, so for now I have an unfinished basement where I can hoarde all the curriculum I want! ha!
Anna has a top shelf of one of the bookcases for her school books she needs each week.
I keep curriculum guides and reference books in the same bookshelf.
We also have several sets of ITSO shelves from Target that house chapter books.
The Downstairs Learning/Music Area
We have a small room downstairs that closes with French doors - this used to be my piano studio when I had private students.
Now that I am "retired", we have added shelving to this room and use it for another learning area.
The piano gets a lot of use from Anna.
We have a large bookshelf in this room, with two smaller Expedit shelves from IKEA.
The Expedit shelves hold all of the LEGO Education materials, as well as Grant's resources for this year's Classical Conversations Foundations program.
Our games are also kept in baskets by the shelves.
I like this little room because it has large windows that look out into our front yard. It's a happy room that's cozy and just calls us to learn about something.
When my kids were little I had a loveseat under the window and would have my quiet time each day (during naptime!) in that sunny spot. Now I just have room for a rocking chair in this room and steal my quiet time before everyone gets up in the morning.
Where The Real Learning Happens
I'm sure the real learning happens in the place in your home, too... the kitchen.
It seems that we always wind up at the table together, so I've given up trying to confine learning to just one place.
We start our day here, with memory work, devotions, and music.
This constant way to start our days makes all the difference.
My white board and speaker system are two of my favorite homeschool resources.
Projects during the day sometimes also move to our dining room, where we have a large table and more quiet space.
Again, I'm blessed to have a home with a lot of space for the kids to spread out. I gave up long ago trying to make it a show place - it's just our home and there's a lot of learning going on in that home.
And of course, there's my office:
Now that I'm writing my own music curriculum I would like to have more of a dedicated work space, but for now, my laptop travels to all parts of the house and is my mobile office.
I'm looking forward to reading everyone's schoolroom posts this week.
Where do you "DO SCHOOL"?
Reader Comments (15)
Oh I'm joules...trying to homeschool in a camper is so hard, I still have books and things not in place yet!
I loved getting a peak into your schoolroom and the honesty you share. It's so encouraging to hear that you had a schoolroom and it didn't work! I've longed for one but as you said, we homeschool all over the house so I don't know that it would work if we had one! I loved your music room - it just looks so inviting. Thanks for sharing.
We also school all over the house. At the moment... the kitchen table is flipped upside down (so it's out of commission) waiting to be buffed from a chalk paint project. I have to admit that I have struggled with wanting a "perfect" schoolroom - thanks for posting photos of your home. It looks very similar to our home (which is more space than we need for a family of 3!). I'm thankful to have a spare bedroom that we use as the "schoolroom" - and since we use it most days, it's not what you would see in most schoolroom photos.
I love that you said, "Again, I'm blessed to have a home with a lot of space for the kids to spread out. I gave up long ago trying to make it a show place - it's just our home and there's a lot of learning going on in that home." We have been homeschooling in a very small house for 10 yrs. Lord willing, we will be moving into a much larger home in the next few weeks, We are really looking forward to having room to spread out (and the second bathroom) ;-) Most of our learning will still be in our living room area. At first, it made me a little uneasy to have all the extra room and still most of our stuff right by the front door. Then I remembered, even though we have more room, homeschooling is still our way of life and there will be a day when the house is quite and the school stuff can be replaced with decorations. So thank you, for the gentle reminder of what is really important.
We are just getting started in our homeschool journey, and I love peeking into other homeschool classrooms. I think we'll store a lot of our stuff in one room, but we'll really end up schooling all over the place.
I love the window seat, Mary. I have plans for one in our family room - an IKEA "hack" idea! Maybe this year it will happen. :)
This is our first year homeschooling and I have found our designated homeschool room to fit us perfectly over the past month. BUT, getting started in the mornings has been a challenge to flip the ON switch for the day. Thinking about moving our first subjects (Bible and Reading) downstairs where we already are in the sleepy, slow morning time. Might provide a more natural transition into our school day.
We started our home school year last week! I had finally decided we needed to have one room totally dedicated to "school." That didn't even last one day! Somehow most things ended up on the kitchen table. Best place to work with both boys at the same time. The book shelf in the kitchen is about to get filled back up. It's just what works for us right now.
Great spaces. We learn all over the house just like you guys.
Blessings, Dawn
I like all the spaces you have for schooling and how you integrate it into your life. We just aren't wired that way. While we don't stay in one spot all day, we do prefer to keep school contained in its own area, or pickup after having things out. It's nice to see how different everyone can be.
Love this! I am kind of like you in that I am TRYING to give up the idea of a picture perfect school room. Hmm, reminds me, I forgot to do my post :D lol We school all over the house, though the basement and kitchen table are the main areas. We too have an unfinished basement, but every year we do something a bit different (just slightly) to help us use our space better. Rearranging furniture always makes it feel like a new room :0)
Oh, I love the window seat in the kitchen! That's where I'd sit in the morning for read alouds :) We too learn all over the house. We finished our basement complete with a "structured" classroom in the beginning of our journey and now it sits isolated. I don't like it! Now I need to sell the desks, chairs and rolling carts that were abandoned long ago :)
I love that window seat you have.
That kitchen window seat is lovely!
I always try to have a schoolroom (more of a school space since we don't have a spare room) and for years we did too. But because we have a small house, it is actually harder to do since our family has grown. So for now, we school all over the place. Most of the schooling for the little ones happens in the living room. The high school student usually uses my desk since that's the quietest space in the house. And the middle school student kind of floats about. As long as his work is done...it's all good!
You have a lovely home! We used to have a dedicated room when all our kids were little, but now it's the mancave! We just homeschool anywhere we want now. Bethany uses her tray like a desk and Jeremiah has a moveable computer desk. We use the kitchen table for most things though! I am excited to inform you, Mary that I filled in Squilt as our music curriculum on our IHIP's today!