Our Home is Our Schoolroom

It’s so handy to have a dedicated room to call our schoolroom, but the longer we’re at this the more our “school” and “home” life are merging into one lovely lifestyle.  Let me show you some pictures of our schoolroom and the other learning spaces that keep educational and interesting things within my children’s reach at all times.

I shared details about how we transformed our rarely-used dining room into our home schoolroom last year.

We used things we already had and some elbow grease to give new life to old items and in a couple cases make things we needed.  In that post you’ll also find the directions for our easy to change art wall and our inexpensive large magnetic board.

Rearranging

We’ve changed a few things around since that post.  I confess that I have rearrange-itis.  I get urges to rearrange rooms all the time.  Being open to repurposing and rearranging is one way I keep costs down…not to mention changing a room around is way more fun than just cleaning!

So, I moved the table we were using for a schoolroom table out into the kitchen.  That worked better because we needed more elbow room at dinner time.

The little table from the kitchen became a computer table in our music/playroom.  That worked better because my kids needed more room to spread out books and scratch paper beside the computer for Teaching Textbooks.

Desks from their rooms came downstairs to the schoolroom.  This was a smart move because they rarely used the desks when in their room, and it gave them a lot more storage in the schoolroom.  We keep the desks grouped together in the center of the room because we can easily converse and all have a nice view out the window.

Geography Corner

I gathered all our geography resources to create a central Geography Corner.  Now all our geography games, maps, puzzles, and a globe are near our giant pull-down wall maps.  (I still nearly swoon when I pull down these maps.  Yes, just $5 at a school demolition sale.)

Command Central

I was going to call this area (with my beloved lockers) the writing center, but it has a lot of science and math stuff in it.  So I made up something official sounding: Command Central.

• For writing and notebooking you’ll find lined and unlined paper, envelopes, sheet protectors, a dictionary and thesaurus, stationery, graph and other specialty paper, along with tools like a hole punch and supplies like paperclips.  There is a binder that holds notebooking pages my children can choose from if they don’t want to use plain paper.  I’ve stocked it with general notebooking pages, plus a few styles of graphic organizers and books reports.  I love this system because it keeps notebooking simple–no searching for specific pages online.
• For science there is a microscope and slides, a stereoscope, and all the science supplies that make you feel cool like glass beakers and goggles.
• For math there are manipulatives, scales and balances.
• Plus each child gets their own locker.  Don’t let my kids say they’re missing out on any of the fun school kids have!  I may even put combination locks on them someday just so when they get older they can have dreams like I do that they’ve forgotten their locker combination.

Bookshelves (You can never have too many.)

The large bookshelf in our schoolroom is packed full, and I organize it by person.

I use two higher shelves for my binders, reference books, teachers manuals and books I’m saving for upcoming units.  Each of my children has two shelves: one for books, binders and notebooks, the other for school supplies.  This bookcase also houses my sadly under-used sewing machine and on top science models and our printer.

My favorite homeschool supply is books, and there isn’t a room in our house that doesn’t have them.  Bookshelves and baskets or boxes of books are everywhere you look in our home.

• Nonfiction science and history books are near a window seat.  I also keep books here that are just fun to look at like Waldo or spot-the-difference type books.
• Library picture books have their own box beside the couch.  Just above them is a box with chapter books and devotional books we’re reading aloud.
• Poetry books are next to a comfortable armchair in the living room.
• Just outside their bedroom doors is a basket of audio picture books we have on audio.  My husband has recorded some of our favorite books for our children.  They love to listen to his voice reading them!
• In the upstairs hall is a bookshelf of chapter books and our previous year school binders.  (Note to self: we need more bookshelves.)
• Each of my children also has a bookshelf in their room for favorite books they’ve collected.  In the schoolroom my daughter has her own basket of chapter books she’s working on and my son has a crate of just-right-for-him books.

Nature Table

Our nature table is located in a highly trafficked spot.

I rotate items through to keep it interesting.  In a basket on the floor are all our field guides. I stack books on the table related to what’s on display, sometimes from our collection and sometimes from the library.  Items that will keep for a long time but aren’t on display right then I keep in shoe boxes in the basement.

Storing Art and Craft Supplies

Supplies for crafts and art projects reside in a hutch near the kitchen.  I shared the supplies I stock to fuel my children’s creativity.

Education is our Life

School spills over into home, and home spills over into school.  The schoolroom is a great hub, but our whole house works to enrich our lives.  It’s a great place to spend our days.

Need more ideas for organizing your learning spaces?  Hop over to iHomeschool Network’s NOT Back to School Blog Hop where everyone is sharing their homeschool rooms.