room set up for HOD

[hollyh]

Hi. I am trying to set up my "classroom" for teaching LHTH and LHFHG. However, I am thinking long term what will work best for the room before purchasing desks/etc. Basically my older dd will be 2 programs ahead of the twins... and then eventually another little one 2 grades below that. What kind of set up would you use for that? Would you get one big desk to work at, individual desks, what? Also, I am interested in using workboxes, but don't know if they are even necessary with HOD... would there be any point? Thanks for any input.

[Melena]

Hello. We have been homeschooling our 5 children for 18 years, but this is our first year with HOD. We love it! We have never had a classroom per se. My kids do their work at the kitchen counter, the dinning room table, the couch, the floor, and their beds. I may invest in desks this summer for two of my children but so far we've survived without them. I do have several different sized dry erase boards and an easel that I use occasionally. We've never used workboxes even though they sound really cool. My 15 yo dd keeps her current books in a portable plastic bin and is guided in work directly from the guide. Her guide pages are in plastic covers and she checks the boxes with a dry erase marker as she completes them. My 12 and 10 yo's books that are currently being utilized are kept in a rack on the kitchen counter. I make a computerized list for each of them every morning so they have something to guide them and something to check off. They don't ever refer to the guide. I keep my littlest one's books on a bookshelf by my dinning room table, and she does all her work with me. This is what works for us. HTH !
Marie
married 23 years
18 dd college
15 dd RTR
12 ds Preparing
10 dd Preparing
7 dd LHFHG

[8arrows]

I have two big, oak, farm-type tables pushed together so we all have room to work together. There is an old wooden teacher's desk at the end. This gives us lots of room to be together and work, but not be on top of one another. There is also a big sectional in the room. I find having them in the same room helpful most of the time, but I do have to send one out now and then if they are having trouble concentrating. I do LHFHG mostly on the couch with my littles, and then at the table with me between them on the bench for the written work. I do have 8 children and we have a walk-out basement for the schoolroom, so we have more room than you may have for a school room. When we had less children, we had the same teacher's desk and just one of the farm-type tables. That also worked well. At that point, we had to switch room for the couch. Having enough workboxes for all my children would drive me batty. Although it does sound appealing if I had less children, we have not had the need for it. We put all currently unused HOD books in a tote. Each child has their own basket of books, and there is one shared basket. I make a quick list each morning of what they need to do each day and put "see TM" (teacher's manual) if there are detailed instructions.

[8arrows]

double post

[creativemommy]

There are a lot of great homeschool rooms & ideas out there, but try to figure out what will work best for you and your kids. As long as you have a couch, table/chairs and plenty of floor space for activities you're ready to use HOD for now.

When we began homeschooling a few years ago we used one side of our playroom. I had desks but ended up re-selling them - my kids preferred a table. I had a cute alphabet & posters on the walls, but ended up taking it down. My degree is in teaching & I taught prior to having my kids, but what I realized was that it wasn't working for us at home to make it mirror an actual classroom. My kids didn't care about the classroom-like furniture/decor since they don't know anything different than home.

We now school in the dining room because my ds loves the natural light and my dd needs to be free from extra distractions. This leaves our playroom (on another level of our home) free for those not schooling at the table with me. We have slender cabinets that line the wall of the dining room (Ikea) that work well to hold all our HOD books and supplies, as well as art supplies, math manipulatives, extra paper, etc. We're near the kitchen for science experiments & easy art clean-up. We're also near the couches in the living room if we want to read & cuddle.

[mskogen]

I can relate to Beth. I was a teacher before having kids and had to spend some time getting "classroom" out of my design plans. We are in the process of changing our "schoolroom" I will share when we are done what the latest transformation is.....

[hollyh]

I'm not trying to mimic a classroom. I have been schooling this past year in the kitchen, in the playroom, on the couches, etc. I'm realizing that my dd5 needs more structure and would do better if she had a SET place to learn. The family room couch means she can jump, wiggle, get on/off, etc. She would truly thrive in a classroom setting - so I am trying to give her at least a quiet room that we can go to without a lot of distraction- and I think she would love her own little desk, etc. I think we will finish school in half the time by doing so. I told my dh that I will probably only use the room for certain subjects, and maybe only for a year or two until she "gets" that she has to focus during school. It will also store all the rest of our homeschool/tot school stuff - which will be nice!

[raceNzanesmom]

I'm not trying to mimic a classroom. I have been schooling this past year in the kitchen, in the playroom, on the couches, etc. I'm realizing that my dd5 needs more structure and would do better if she had a SET place to learn. The family room couch means she can jump, wiggle, get on/off, etc. She would truly thrive in a classroom setting - so I am trying to give her at least a quiet room that we can go to without a lot of distraction- and I think she would love her own little desk, etc. I think we will finish school in half the time by doing so. I told my dh that I will probably only use the room for certain subjects, and maybe only for a year or two until she "gets" that she has to focus during school. It will also store all the rest of our homeschool/tot school stuff - which will be nice!

We have a school room in our basement that houses all our extra books (3 1/2 bookcases), extra art supplies, microscope, etc. We also have a large playroom down there. It doesn't work for us for doing school, we tried. So now, ds 7, has a desk in the kitchen. We have a whiteboard in front of it and a small wall for hanging stuff on. The basement door holds the maps. This is where he does his seat work. We still use the kitchen table for projects and the couch for reading/snuggle time. It's what works for us for now. Once he's tall enough to comfortably sit at the table and write we'll probably move the desk out.

[Tree House Academy]

I only have two children, so I really would be no help organizing your school room for 4 kids. I will say that my room started out one way and has changed and evolved as needed over the years. Right now, my two sons have seperate tables (small kitchen size) that are turned so they are not looking at each other during school. They are 4 years apart and distract each other constantly.

We DO use workboxes, though...and we all love them! They work wonderfully with HOD - I lay out the boxes by subject, usually, so often they contain 1-3 of the boxes on the HOD pages worth of work. The workboxes are wonderful for putting out everything you will need to do art projects, science experiments, and even just keeping up with the different notebooks used in the older guides (i.e. the common place book, History/Science binder, Shakespeare folder, etc) that are not used every single day.

Example:

Bigger Hearts for His Glory: 6 Workboxes

Box 1: Math

Box 2: Language Arts - English, Dictation (when scheduled), and cursive writing

Box 3: Poetry/copywork and Science

Box 4: History, Music, and Bible (this one box has everything from the left side pages except poetry)

Box 5: Storytime

Box 6: DITHR



Older guide example: Resurrection to Reformation Guide (8 Boxes)

Box 1: Math (can you tell my kids like to get math out of the way first?? )

Box 2: History - (includes all 3 history related boxes on left side)

Box 3: Shakespeare/Geography/Timeline/Research box (changes daily in the guide)

Box 4: Bible Quiet Time

Box 5: Science

Box 6: Rosetta Stone French (and add-on...not part of the guide)

Box 7: Language Arts: All of these are scheduled at some time through the week: Dictation/English/Writing/DITHR

Box 8: Storytime and Art/Devotional/Poetry box in guide

Notice the last two workboxes for my older son are also all of the things that he *may* need my help on plus the boxes in the guide that are marked "teacher" (Storytime and Art/devotional/poetry). Those are set up that way so that I can work with my older son after I have finished the school day with my younger son.

[golfmom]

I had a long post written out but I "lost" it. Basically I was going to tell you that desks or table works just fine. We started out with desk but quickly moved to the table. It just works better for us. I don't use the work boxes myself but do something kinda similar. We have bookshelves that hold our school stuff. Each morning I get each kid stuff and make each one their own stack. That way we don't have to hunt down any books or pencils etc.. The stack is placed on our kitchen bar. This is right beside our table. All the kids have to do is turn around grab their book and go. Since we only have 1 book at a time out it helps keep the mess to a minimum. HTH!

[amysconfections]

Here is our school room http://perfectlycrazylife.blogspot.com/ ... -room.html

This works well for us. We also use the couches in the living room for reading.