I'm getting a homeschool room!

[MamaPajama]

This past weekend there were garage sales all over our neighborhood, including our house. On Thursday our neighbor had an actual classroom chalkboard (4.5'-ish x 10') for sale for $5. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but for that price I couldn't pass it up, so I bought it. That night my wheels began turning and I decided I wanted to turn our formal living room into a dining/homeschool room, making room in our eat-in kitchen for some more cabinetry. I asked DH what he thought, and he was sold. So two days later we sold our entire living room set on craigslist and I've been busy moving furniture and reorganizing all of our homeschool things. AND we have people coming over tonight to get the chalkboard up! I'm so excited, and so are the kids. I can't believe we never thought of doing this before!

Do any of you have a designated homeschool space? If so, any tips on keeping it tidy and organized? The only drawback of this room is that it's the first room you enter when you come into our house. I have hidden all the books and manipulatives in the bottom of our hutch, in baskets, and inside an old Victrola cabinet. The only things that aren't terribly classy looking are our plastic drawer towers (workboxes) and the kids' little multi-colored fold-up table and chairs. I don't mind it looking like a HOMEschool room. I just don't want it to feel like we're in a school when people come over.

[annaz]

How cool and fun is that? There's always a plan or an arrangement I figure I haven't thought of. I've repurposed my Family Room for our homeschool room; because we never use it. Ours, you have to walk through to get to secondary bathrooms and bedrooms, so it's seen.

I find that when I use our Family Room as opposed to the back bedroom as a homeschool room that I like to use more eye-pleasing storage. I'm not a fan of the plastic drawers. But then I'm not a fan of them anywhere and yes, I have several. I use open bookshelves with nice containers to store manipulatives, whether it's matching plastic boxes of some sort, baskets or jars, but I keep storage consistent so it's not so busy looking. So if you have manipulatives, put all that in the same type baskets, or jars, etc. The less hodgepodge, the more pleasing to the eye. Instead of using multi-colored buckets, I'd use all black or all yellow, etc. I don't use too many different types of containers. I had a bulletin board and I paper-backed the board to match the color of the wall so it wasn't so in-your-face wild. So I keep things tidy by matching instead of using what's hanging around the house. Of course it's not cheaper that way. But it is eye friendly. And I think too many colors and business, like in classrooms, you just don't know where to look. There's so many colors and charts and junk that it just gets ignored. Match it all like you would your living room or kitchen. You could hang a curtain rod over the chalkboard and close it when it's finished or install cabinet doors around it and close it off when you're finished.

[momwith3]

I've been using my dining room. I had fixed up the basement with posters and bulletin boards, but it was just too cold! I get frustrated sometimes that there is stuff everywhere, although I've been praying about it and God seems to have calmed me down! I've been reading lately about homeschooling NOT being traditional school at home, but a lifestyle. So having the school room as a part of the main house makes it more like that. No need to just learn in the morning..learn all day! Some kids are better at that than others!

[4littleones]

Rejoicing with you! Yoohoo!

[khbmom]

Wow - sounds great! We don't have a designated room - we use the kitchen, but it works for us.

[lmercon]

I have a home school room too! I love it. I would choose storage that isn't "schoolish" with primary colors, etc. One thought I had was how to cover up that awesomely huge blackboard you bought. You could hang a curtain rod over it and use some pretty tab curtains and pull them shut when you have company. Simply open during school. Just a thought. Enjoy your room!
Laura

[MamaPajama]

I'm loving the curtain idea. I have managed to sort of hide our plastic workboxes too. I put one between the Victrola and the wall, and the other behind our easel. It's looking decent in here.

[birchbark]

I would be hitting the "Like" button if there was one.

[rainbowacreshs]

LOL... When we first started homeschooling it was at the kitchen table. As time progressed, and the amount of stuff that got junked onto the kitchen table we progressed to the dining room. Eventually we ate got to the point of meals in the kitchen with the dining room becoming our school/office/arts/craft area. We have a used lab school desk and a fold up rectangle shaped table as a second desk. A filing cabinet, a hodgepodge of shelves including a storage cabinet and rubber maid tubs are lined up against the walls. Posters of the continents, proofreaders skills, solar system, a white board and coark board grace two of the walls. Its a decorator's nightmare.

I am holding on to hope that this fall we will be getting a new mobile home for the property and chunkin the one we are in. I've asked my husband if we definitely find one w/ either a separate family room or go 5th bedroom to allow for a separate school & play room.
love the idea of a curtian too, I'll have to keep that one in mind when I can redo our area.

[blessedmama]

We have a "school" room where the computer is located, shelving, table and books galore. I have only used it a handful of times I end up at the kitchen table most times since I feel like I can keep an eye on everyone and I don't feel so holed up (our "school room is in the back of the house). I wish I could do school in the "school"room but until the little ones get bigger we will have to settle for the kitchen table. I have to add that being in the kitchen for me also produces this strange hunger from out of nowhere...hmm,I just don't get it?
Congrats on your room!!!

[ninipelley]

So funny-we have a ranch style home with a 5th basement bedroom. When I first started hs, I painted the walls, placed some cute animals on the walls and a dry erase board. I moved 2 book shelves down there and had a big corner computer desk. After about 2 months, I got tired of running up/down stairs to get the babies as their rooms are upstairs.
So, everything got moved upstairs right into the eat in kitchen. We'd use the table which was fine. Then I started putting bookshelves in there, then the computer, then a hutch. Okay, now we are moving BACK to the basement as We have totally outgrown with books. I like to keep everything together in one area or I won't use it.
So, now I have re-organized the room. I found 2 old style wooden school desks w/ attached chairs at a garage sale (today actually for $30) they lift open and have alot of room for their books/stuff. 3 or so BIG bookshelves line the walls. I also keep alot of manipulatives in cute baskets on the shelves next to the same subject of books. Easy access. One shelf for reference books. Target had the little colored pails in their dollar aisle and I place some school supplies in those on a bookshelf. Like pencils, markers, scissors etc. I got an over the door canvas shoe holder ($10) at Walmart that I put tons of craft/art supplies in. Like pipe cleaners, glue, googly eyes, popsicle sticks, paper pieces, cotton balls, anything! I will have 2 toddlers soon so I'd like to keep some things for them to do in their as well that they don't have DAILY access to. I purchased the square wire storage racks from Target while on sale and you can make your own sizes with them. I then placed all kinds of fun activities in these. Like coloring books, leap pad, chunky books, Legos, Lincoln logs, etc etc.
I may also try "workboxes" for the kids this fall. I got some colored cardboard magazine holders at TJ Maxx for each child and placed on the bookshelf. I also made some of my own out of cereal boxes covered with some of my leftover scrapbook paper.
I have a small storage closet that I keep the rest of the craft supplies, paper/school supplies, movie cd's in.
I'll post pic's sometime. Hope that helps.

[Mommamo]

Wow! You all have such great ideas.

This house we're living in now (bought it about 6 mo ago) has a huge loft room so I immediately thought it would be a great school/play room. It was nice because we put all the toys in half of the room and had half for school. They were separated with shelving things we bought at Target. The room is a little over 300 sq ft so we had plenty of room! It worked great for a little while, but I noticed that if we came downstairs for snack, to play outside, to go to the bathroom, for anything, school would get disrupted. So... a couple of weeks ago we decided to take a break from school and move. The school room is now in the office, off of the kitchen. It's a WHOLE lot smaller. The kids are going to have to have the toys in their room instead of a play room. But we've utilized cabinets in the laundry room (also off of the office), book cases that we had and that we've found at garage sales, plastic containers that yogurt and stuff come in (it's all in put away in cabinets so you can't see it), and those bin/shelf things from Target that we got on sale a while back. My FIL works at a school and they frequently have desks that they don't need anymore, white boards they don't need anymore (have dents on the sides or whatever) so he's about to get some that they're throwing out for us. We have a little table right now that was mine when I was little, so we're going to add a couple of little school desks so that everyone has separate areas to work, and we can still get together at the little table or even the kitchen table if we need to. Also with the school room near the kitchen we can go in easily to do science projects or get a snack!

We do keep some little toys in the bottom bins for our 2 year old. She knows exactly where all her toys are. We also keep the legos and blocks and puzzles in here so that when the 4 year old's school is done he can still play (hopefully) quietly while we do school. It works pretty well most of the time since school with HOD doesn't take the entire day.

I don't know if this will help at all since our school room does look pretty "schooly" and I know that's not what you're looking for, but just thought I'd share in case someone needs more ideas some day.

[sw1ssm1ss]

I wanted to mention that I heard Cynthia Tobias speak at a homeschool convention last week and she strongly encouraged homeschoolers *not* to use school desks with attached chairs. The reason she offered was that most kids find them uncomfortable, and the discomfort makes it harder to work. She explains more about it (and other accommodations homeschoolers can make) in the book, "I Hate School." Really, she was praising homeschooling as such a great option because our kids don't have to be chained to

I think if you have them and they're working for you--great. Or if you get them cheaply--great. But I know some people spend hundreds of dollars to get "real" school desks!

Also, I have to say this thread is encouraging me in a different way. We don't have a school room. I really want one! But it's just not possible right now, and it's a relief to know that even if we had one, we might not use it if it didn't accommodate babies/toddlers. It's good to know not to be envious and just to plug along with what we have!

[brokenopen]

We have been planning on enclosing our single car garage for years, but have not yet been able to. Lol, seems we are always short of either finances or time! We have been schooling on the couch and kitchen table and find that works well, but really wish we had a dedicated room for storage of all these books and supplies. We use a little of everything, too, plastic drawers and baskets plus bookshelves and a shelf in the hall closet.

Happy for you, and I will be snagging that curtain idea myself when I find a place to hang my garage sale dry erase board!!