Some of my favorite posts on other homeschooling moms' blogs are posts that show school rooms. I absolutely love taking a peek into the school rooms of others and seeing how they are organized, how they are decorated, what ideas I can borrow.
I know that not every homeschooler has the luxury of a room that can be set aside as a school room - I am well aware that I am blessed. I also want to make it clear that we don't do all of our school work in the school room. Our school room is more of a jumping off point - a place to keep everything, a place to do most of our work together, a place for me to get things ready for the next school day. My children generally do their independent work in the kitchen, on the computer in my room, cuddled by the fire, or in one of our comfy chairs. My daughter enjoys doing quite a bit of her reading snuggled on her bed in her room. We always do our art classes in the basement.
In this first picture you can see the workbox station and a great table where I always sit and prepare the workboxes each evening. The computer is RARELY used - it is SO, SO, SO slow but I have kept it in the school room because every once in a great while Duncan plays some educational computer games on it.
Here you can see the inside of my homeschool closet. Yes, I really did collect a lot of books, curriculum, science kits, and manipulatives over 6 years of homeschooling. There are definitely some things I could give away or sell but...just the other day I got out the counting bears to use when explaining a particularly difficult math word problem to my 5th grade son.
On this side of the school room is a tall bookcase. I do have the books in the school room pretty well organized by subject. This particular bookcase houses all of our drawing books, field guides, art books, educational magazines, and history books.
Right next to the tall bookcase is a short bookcase which houses all reference books. After years of searching for a dictionary every time somebody needed one, I set up a reference center. On this reference shelf are dictionaries, atlases, and many different types of Usborne encyclopedias.
Here you can see the middle of the school room which houses the new futon and butterfly chairs that I purchased this year. I had hoped the space would be a cozy space to sit and read but, so far, it has not really worked out that way. Our cat can usually be found sleeping in one of the chairs, though. I think we need a large area rug to warm up the space a bit. I think we might need a table as well. My cozy reading area isn't as cozy as I would like it to be. Perhaps it just has too much competition with other snuggly chairs, fireside sofas, and warm beds.
My husband brought this wonderful shelf home from work for me several years ago and it makes a great place to store educational games and the books from our current unit study. I also use the bottom shelves for my daughter's school books as I do not use workboxes for her. The smaller wire shelf next to it (another free gift from my husband) holds easy chapter books and other collections of easy readers.
Here is another collection of low bookshelves. On these I have lot of different books organized by subject. I also have baskets of picture books. On top, each of the children has a plastic bin with books that he or she has written. I put finished lapbooks in these as well. My daughter now has two bins because her bin was overflowing.
At the other end of the school room is the main work area for our school. This is where we work on lapbooks, geography, Latin and Greek roots, and any school work we all do together where we need to write and use the white board. I often work one on one with a child at this space since the white board is so handy.
At this end of the school room is an identical closet to the one at the other end. I designed the closets in our house and my husband and dad put in all of the shelving units. I love my closets. This closet houses toys, tons of games, and even more puzzles.
At this end of the school room is also the absolutely wonderful shelving unit that my sister-in-law purchased for 5.00. I keep scads of office supplies in this unit and I just love having everything organized. Thanks again, Auntie Kim!
Lastly, here is a peek at my very favorite decorative element in our school room - the fabulous big collage letters that my middle completed when he was in kindergarten. He did such a great job with them. I also have a set that were completed by my youngest son in kindergarten so the letters stretch around most of the room. Here you see the apple-stamped A, the button B, and the crayon C. Both of my sons had so much fun making these collage letters. I sometimes wish I had another kindergartner so we could do them again!
So, that's a peek into our school room - the launching pad and gathering post for our academic work at home.
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