I tend to get a bit envious when it's schoolroom week for the Not Back To School Blog Hop.
It seems that homeschool bloggers everywhere spruce up their beautiful classrooms to share with the world.
What I want to know is this: How long do those rooms stay perfect and beautiful? AND How many people really have a dedicated space just for homeschool?
I want to encourage you today with a peek into my home.
We are blessed with a home that is larger than what we probably need. It's not huge, but certainly enough for our family of 4.
I've tried to keep one room as the schoolroom before, and it DID NOT work.
I also have to confess that it is difficult for me to stay organized. I am a creative person by nature, and there are books and learning materials all over our home.
I'm organized in the ways that count, but I gave up long ago trying to live up to the picture perfect homeschool room standard.
For our family, learning occurs all over our house, so I've learned over time to set up a little bit of homeschool in almost every room of the house. It works for us, and I'd like to share that with you today.
This year we had one specific requirement to meet: a private space for Anna to complete her Challenge A coursework each week.
The Upstairs Learning Area
We have a large room over our garage - a bonus room. This room is all purpose: family computer, sleeper sofa and entertainment center, bookshelves, a homeschool storage closet, and Anna's study area.
It's the furthest room from our kitchen/family room, so it's quiet.
Anna spends the majority of her time here this year so she can complete her work in total quiet. She also uses the computer for her Saxon Math lessons.
This used to be nothing but a homeschool room, but I found that it was hard for me to accomplish the household tasks each day and stay on top of the children as I was running up and down the stairs.
This room is also where the boys retreat to watch their baseball games and where sleepovers are held, so it's really an all purpose room.
In my ideal world I would have my basement finished, but that's one of those things that was put on hold many years ago when we made the decision to homeschool, so for now I have an unfinished basement where I can hoarde all the curriculum I want! ha!
Anna has a top shelf of one of the bookcases for her school books she needs each week.
I keep curriculum guides and reference books in the same bookshelf.
We also have several sets of ITSO shelves from Target that house chapter books.
The Downstairs Learning/Music Area
We have a small room downstairs that closes with French doors - this used to be my piano studio when I had private students.
Now that I am "retired", we have added shelving to this room and use it for another learning area.
The piano gets a lot of use from Anna.
We have a large bookshelf in this room, with two smaller Expedit shelves from IKEA.
The Expedit shelves hold all of the LEGO Education materials, as well as Grant's resources for this year's Classical Conversations Foundations program.
Our games are also kept in baskets by the shelves.
I like this little room because it has large windows that look out into our front yard. It's a happy room that's cozy and just calls us to learn about something.
When my kids were little I had a loveseat under the window and would have my quiet time each day (during naptime!) in that sunny spot. Now I just have room for a rocking chair in this room and steal my quiet time before everyone gets up in the morning.
Where The Real Learning Happens
I'm sure the real learning happens in the place in your home, too... the kitchen.
It seems that we always wind up at the table together, so I've given up trying to confine learning to just one place.
We start our day here, with memory work, devotions, and music.
This constant way to start our days makes all the difference.
My white board and speaker system are two of my favorite homeschool resources.
Projects during the day sometimes also move to our dining room, where we have a large table and more quiet space.
Again, I'm blessed to have a home with a lot of space for the kids to spread out. I gave up long ago trying to make it a show place - it's just our home and there's a lot of learning going on in that home.
And of course, there's my office:
Now that I'm writing my own music curriculum I would like to have more of a dedicated work space, but for now, my laptop travels to all parts of the house and is my mobile office.
I'm looking forward to reading everyone's schoolroom posts this week.
Where do you "DO SCHOOL"?
