Small House Homeschooling

[Tukata]

Help! I just started my 4yodd with LHTH and she LOVES it! We're zipping through and will do Little Hearts in the fall/winter for 5K. I just have no idea how to organize in our small home! Do you all have a specific place where you "do school"? We don't have a school room so will be using our living room and kitchen table. Right now I store craft supplies in the basement and the books in my room, which is fine, but I'm sure there's a much better way. I'm looking into purchasing a larger bookshelf for the living room as the two in there are full and we're just beginning our homeschool journey. Is the kitchen table fine or should I get a small table or desk for her (we have two other children as well, so eventually that would be 3 desks or more if we should be blessed with more children)? I'd love to hear how you all make homeschooling work in small spaces. =) Thanks in advance for all your great ideas!!
Erin

[inHistiming]

Wow, this is a question I need answered as well! Can we also add in downsizing to a smaller home and how you all combine children in their bedrooms? We are renting a large house right now since dh's work is paying for it b/c of the type of assignment he has right now. However, when we move south in a few months, that will not be the case so we are anticipating needing to be in a smaller home to be able to afford living in Miami. How do you do it with five children(baby will be born in Oct.)? We have two of each now, so after baby we will have 3 of one gender and 2 of the other. Can't wait to see all the answers and glean from all of you!

[inHistiming]

Erin, I'll answer part of your question, though I need lots of help in the organization dept. myself! For us, we tend to combine our school room with our dinng room, even when we've been in roomy homes. Our last house had a basement, so that's where we stored our books and toys, but we still ended up gravitating to the dining room table upstairs for written work and the couches for reading. Currently, our dining room doubles as our schooling space. I have one shelf that holds all of the kids' books that we are using right now. This house happens to have some built-in shelves on our landing for other books. However, if I did not have that, we would just put another shelf in the dining room for those. Our game shelf is in the nearby playroom (supposed to be the 'formal' living room). The kids do their work in the dining room, and our reading together is typically done in our living room where it's comfy. Sometimes, the table is still a mess at dinner time so it's not ideal, but it's the best we have available for now. When we make our next move I'm hoping we can have our desks placed in good space(s) so the table can just be for meals, but we will see. We also have maps on the wall that we use for school and just in general when discussing places in the world. If it doesn't bother you then you could do that too...it was easier for us than a globe b/c we have nowhere to put the globe right now that would be convenient. I'm sure many people do this many different ways and you'll get some great ideas. I'm looking forward to reading all the posts myself!

[birchbark]

This thread may be helpful.

[HollyS]

We have a small house (and lived in a small apartment before). In the apartment I used a microwave stand. I kept art supplies in the bottom cabinet (locked ). In the top where the microwave would go, I kept our books. Now we have a bit more space, so I have a computer desk in the dining room. I have a cabinet, little plastic drawers, and some shelves to keep everything we use regularly. Our dining room has that "homeschooler" look, but it works for us. The rest is stored in the basement. We have several sets of bookshelves in the basement and a semi-finished room, but it sets off my allergies to teach down there...plus the steps are pretty steep for my littlest ones.

As far as desks, I had a Little Tikes table for them to write at, but I had to make room for my youngest baby's swing and playpen, so it's currently in the basement too. They often use the dining table, barstools in the kitchen, or a lapdesk at the couch. I also keep a few manipulatives in the dining room too. Right now we have pattern blocks, teddy bear counters, and foam beads. My 3yo loves to get these out when the others are working on school.

[kvmck]

Unfortunately I have had to become quite adept in organizing a small home--we live in about 1100 sq ft with no garage, basement,or attic and have one small storage place under the stairs. (We came from a 5 bedrm with large garage and storage shed...). I struggle daily with wanting just one room that is "without stuff" and boy do we have stuff--most of it books.
We homeschool in our dining room, I have one short bookshelf that holds current school stuff and another (which is really 2 wooden shoe racks on top of each other) that holds the 3 year olds "school stuff". I installed a long, wide shelf that serves as a craft desk along one wall (it already had a higher and narrower "bar table" but bar stools and my young one are too dangerous!) and my 3 year old can paint, play-doh and make all sorts of messes but she is close to all of us so she is happy. I love having school at the dining table since my kids usually want me close by even when doing independent work--and the table is close to the kitchen and laundry room so I'm able to multi-task w/o much difficulty This works well for us, until we do math. I have one child that must talk out loud and one who needs silence--ah, we have some good attitude training times with this! I don't like to send either child upstairs b/c the 3 year old will usually go with and no school work gets done. So I sometimes have a child go to the living room (I have the dining rm and living rm. "separated" from each other with curtains). Schooling at the table does force us to clean up after school so that the table can be clear for dinner... but we can also transfer profects to the craft desk if needed.
I keep pencils, pens, dry erase markers, scissors, glue etc.. in a round divded container that fits perfectly on top of a lazy susan. This, a globe and a dictionary sit on top of the short bookshelf in the dining room (we move the lazy susan on to the table when we do school). Each child has a bin (sturdy cloth ones) that hold all of their books, folders, file card boxes, Bible, etc and those sit on top of the "shoe racks" that house the 3 year olds "school" stuff. Extra school supplies are in a hanging shoe rack that hangs inside the storage closet door. We have bins which house future HOD programs and those live under the craft desk to one side. I have a set of plastic drawers that stands next to the computer in which we keep paper.
There is a 2 ft hall way that leads from the dining rm. to kitchen that I put 2 bookcases in, and we have 3 bookcases on the the stair landing. We also have LOTS of board games--we keep some on top of the bookshelves on the stair landing and some on the bottom shelf of our small dining rm. hutch.
Our living room contains 6 bookcases, the upstairs hallway has 3 and our bedroom has 2 (can you tell we LOVE books--just my husband's books occupy about 7 bookcases). We have a lot of craft supplies and they are mostly in a book shelf in our very small laundry closet. We have 3 computers--one is in a nook between the dining and living room and one is in the coat closet (the coats are now upstairs in our closet while a few are on a wall coat rack by the front door) and my lap top has a place on the kitchen counter away from the stove, sink etc...
The 2 girls share a room and have wall mounted shelves in order to give them some more floor space. My son has a loft so he can have a bit of floor space. When we thought we were having more kids (we've had 2 miscarriages) we were thinking of a trundle to put under the bottom bunk bed. My kids also talked about having all the beds in one room (although I'm not sure they would fit) and then have the other bedroom as a playroom, but my son decided he'd much rather have some space that is his own without his very talkative sisters! (my 9 yr old ds and 8 yr dd were up until a few months ago in the same room and the 3 year old had her own space so she could take naps.)
our whole home has that "home schooling" look, but until we can afford a larger place, it will just have to stay that way.

[girlboygirlboy]

We lived in a series of small houses(2 bedrooms with no hs room) and homeschooled for about 4 years. It's tough, but can definitely be done. We homeschooled in our kitchen or dining room - never used small desks, just didn't have the space. We usually put a whiteboard up near the table. Bookshelves and rubbermaid containers were my lifesaver. Each child had their own rubbermaid container (with a lid) with their own pencils, crayons and markers in it. These were usually placed either on the bookshelves or in a kitchen cupboard. On the bookshelves, I kept a magazine holder for each child that contained that child's workbooks, current readers, etc. I also have one for myself with current year teacher's manuals, ig's, etc. I also only kept curent year books or books I knew I would use(dictionary, thesaurus, etc). I kept a large basket for our library books on the bottom where the kids could access them. All other books were stored on bookshelves in other areas of the house - usually on shelves inside the coat closet.

Craft supplies were usually stored in a cabinet in the garage and bins housed old curriculum that I was saving(I used the see through kind so I can easily get an idea of what's in there).

I had to get passed the idea that my house looked cluttered, but with 6 people living in a tiny space there's really no way around that. Bins really were my best friend as I look back - I had a bin for my linen closet(extra towels, sheets, tablecloths each had their own). I also stored much under the bunk beds(we had 2 sets in one room). We also used dd's dresser as a tv stand during that time - not fashionable but highly practical when space is at a premium.

Looking back, it wasn't easy, but I was much more prone to giving things away and minimalizing during those years so we just didn't need to keep every toy, book, workbook, etc.

Hope that hleps!

Jennier

[MamaPajama]

We live in a relatively small house as well and I've had to get creative about storage. We were blessed to receive an old hutch from my dad which sits in our living room. Since we don't have a dining room and no fancy dishes (except for one tea set that is on the display shelves), I use the storage below for the majority of our books and maniputlatives. We also have a couple of very cheap cabinets down in our office for storing arts and crafts and the books we aren't using right now. Then we have plastic 5-drawer towers, one for each child, that are also in our living room. Those are used as workboxes and I change what is in the drawers to fit the lessons for the following day. During the summer I will likely store those in our office as well, or maybe our crawlspace.

You could also get those storage ottomans that look fancy on the outside, but have storage on the inside, baskets with lids, or those cheap shelving systems with the cube drawers from Target would be a good way to store things without them being an eye-sore. GL! I'm anxious to hear more replies as well!

[annaz]

I go back and forth decking out my family room or a back room. Know that if you use a bedroom that you're far away from a sink and it tends to get old being in the same room. However the closet in a bedroom makes the perfect storage area, because a back bedroom can be closed off and the mess left out even if you're not finished. Also all the supplies can be in one area because the closet is a decent size and you can put up whatever you want on your walls and not worry about visitors. However regarding the latter, as you homeschool, I don't really care what visitors think. Like "working" at home, you can be done and not see it. On the other had, like I mentioned it can get clausterphobic. Pick a bright room. A dark room becomes a dungeon.

When I use my family room (I have a lot of bookshelves so I can just move my books to suit from room to room), I just sort of change out the bookshelves. I LOVE to have floorspace. I like to be able to do anything and just go to the floor and spread out. That's one thing about a bedroom is that I have a little more space in my Family Room than the bedroom. It's easier to have lunch or snack and still do school. It tends to be brighter and more room to stretch. An armoire is a great storage spot for everything and looks nice. I shy away from the kitchen table except for art, because it's NEVER cleaned off; always full of books and ongoing projects or planning (mine). I never can keep it clutter free. If dd wants to do her written work she can do it at the kitchen table or island, but it's not THEE area because all my storage is in the Family Room.

So wherever works for you, I think having storage where you are is key. I get screwy when I have school stuff all over and in different closets. I'm a little anal and need all my school stuff, no matter what it is in one closet or storage spot.

For me the perfect school spot is a dining room that has a bright window and has doorways to the rest of the house, one of them being the kitchen. You can still do laundry and make lunch, but yet it's its own room a bit off from the main area. And usually off the main area enough to just leave it all out and come back to it the next day without schepping and cleaning things off and without your house looking like an unfinished project .

[annaz]

Let me add that rolling carts are good. You can roll it in and out of a back room or closet, maybe for art supplies. Also the IRIS mobile drawers or anything on wheels. They can be stored where ever. Just roll it out and roll it back to it's home. Box up that china and use that cabinet. Put your food in a cupboard and use the pantry for storage if you want it out of the way. Think out of the box and repurpose what you have and box up what you don't use. Only buy things that contain enclosed storage and everything looks neater, like an end table. Dont' get just the table, get the table with the drawer and a shelf below for example.

[Tukata]

These are all great ideas! I should add that while our home is smallish (1039 sq ft) I really love it and am so thankful for it- such a perfect fit for our family. I love that it makes me declutter! Also, we have no dining room, so the kitchen is the place to be if we want a table. =) I love the idea of a hanging shoe rack on the back of a closet door for art supplies, etc. Wow - I never would have thought of that on my own! I do have one closet that I could use for school stuff and it's between the kitchen and living room, so maybe I need more closet ideas! (please, pass them on if you have them!) You all are so creative - I love how you have used so many things to store your supplies - magazine racks, microwave carts, etc. This has helped me think outside the box. I can't wait to hit some garage sales and see what I can find! =)
Thanks for all your helpful replies!
Erin =)

[birchbark]

Lots of great ideas! I agree that smaller houses can be a blessing in some ways. I really like the organizational ideas and pics in this blog post.

[blessedwith2]

Great ideas! We also live in a small space, an apartment, actually, so I like to try to use multi-purpose items. For example, the desk for my dd6 is also an art easel. When she's not using it, it's upright and out of the way against a wall. When she is using it, it's a desk with a slanted surface that's the perfect height for her. She can keep her feet firmly planted on the floor and the desk height is not too high...both important to ensure when a child is working on fine motor tasks such as handwriting.

We also have a small round plastic table that we can use for group art projects or for dd3 to do her "schoolwork". When not in use, it is short enough to slide under our computer desk/entertainment center. We don't use a "chair" for our computer. We'll either use our ottoman or a ball chair with feet that doubles as a "gross motor play item" for my dc when taking breaks between school tasks or free play time.

All these items are in our living room. (I place the ball chair in the "playroom closet" when not in use.) I also have both dds in one bedroom, so we can use the third bedroom as a playroom. But I like to keep open floor space in the living room and playroom, because we do a lot of our schoolwork on the floor, too. (Having children do handwriting while laying on their bellies on the floor is another good option if you don't have the money/space to have a desk at the appropriate height for each child.)

Hope this helps!

Delia

[Tansy]

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3118&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=table

here is an even older topic on the same thing this one has Photos too

[Kathleen]

I don't know if I qualify to answer here because I don't think our house is "small". It's absolutely perfect for our needs right now. Not small, not big though. Anyway, we didn't pick it based on its size but the location which is only a mile from our farm. (And compared to the OLD trailer that we lived in for 5 years ....this is a mansion. Perspective is everything - and God definitely used those years to cultivate contentment and gratitude in my heart!! )

We don't have any closets on our main floor, so a lot of these storage ideas come in handy for me, too. We use our whole house for school. Writing at the dining room table. Desks would be in the way in our house. We use bedrooms to read in and for activities and music.

Kathleen