Sarah homeschooling recipes family building our home

Friday, March 18, 2011

School Room

This is how my morning and afternoons usually look.  In this particular momemt, they're doing fun stuff.  Normally the table is covered with books and papers, but same idea.  I always enjoy seeing how other home schoolers organize.  Some school in the kitchen.  Some school on the sofa.  Some school in a school room.  Some school outside or during nature walks.  This is where we do it.
(this was taken with my phone, thus the blurriness)
One of the things I've done throughout the years is kept most of my school furniture white.  I've acquired all this stuff at various times, but when you put it all together, it only looks slightly haphazard.

This is taken from the living room.  We are in a rental, so currently, our school is in the entry way.  There's this big open space as you walk in the front door.  Space is limited in our house, so we used it right up and put our school there.  I like it.  It's near the kitchen.  There's lots of natural light.  It works well for us.  This shelf you see is mostly filled with games (as you can see) and puzzles.  Whenever the kids complain about not having anything to do, I point them there.  These shelves are from Ikea.

This is from the inside.  The top shelf is filled with resources we use often, but not daily.  On the right are my photo albums and baby books.  There's really nowhere else to put them in the house, and I didn't want them in the garage.  So there they are.

I opted for the stainless table and have been great with it.  It scratches but doesn't stain like a white surface.

I label the baskets with what exactly should go in them so the kids can put them away themselves.

Plus, labels make me happy.

Can you tell?

This is where I put the kids papers when they're done.  It gives me a place to file them before I put them in their notebooks.

They each have one.  They don't take me too long to make.  Just scrapbook paper, stickers and collages I made on shutterfly.

I do these because we home schoolers don't have the benefit of school pictures.

It keeps me accountable to make sure I have a good individual shot of them per year.  It sounds easy enough, but so many of my pictures end up being in groups.  Or random when their hair or clothes are sloppy.

The back always has a pic of them with their brothers in that same year.

Books.

More books.  And a much needed printer/scanner/copier.  And a good pencil sharpener.  You NEED a good pencil sharpener.

This is my school cart.  It's where I keep everything I use on a daily basis.  I pull it up to where I sit at the table so I don't have to get up and down during school.  Heaven forbid, I exert myself.  The only reason I get up is to reheat my coffee.  I bought it when I started Graham in kindergarten and it's still in great shape.  The drawers are wide and perfect for textbooks.  An Ikea find as well.

And every school room needs pretty pencils in a pretty cup.

The End.

7 comments:

Cara said...

It is beautiful! I learned a little just looking at it! :)

Lisa Manrodt (Gronvall) said...

Sarah
Labels make me happy too! I enjoy your facebook posts and pop over here to see what you are up to every now and then. You are an encouraging person to read! God Bless, Lisa

Krista Sanders said...

It's a perfect space-- and you have maximized it. Great ideas- LOVE the notebooks.

Stephanie said...

This is really helpful for a soon-to-be-homeschooling mom. Thanks! We have the 5x5 expedit shelving unit in the kitchen now, but I am sure we'll end up with more once schooling starts. We seem to run out of storages space fairly quickly...and we aren't even packrats! I wonder if Ikea still has the flat file on wheels...didn't see it there on our trip today.

choose joy said...

Nice school "room" Sarah! Regarding school photos, I've found our local schools are open in letting us in on those. Same with school special events, like the time they brought in a big science expo, they let us join in. It depends on the principal and I go in an talk with them before hand and it's quick to figure out who is sympathetic to home-schoolers and who isn't. BUT, if my photos looked like yours, I wouldn't bother. Who wants "school photos" when yours look like they do?! Nicely done! Blessings, Jennifer

Katherine said...

Sarah...I love this post. Thanks for the tour of your entry-hall school house. You make it work so well.

Sara K. said...

This is fantastic! Love the shelving unit and how well you've used your space. I'm inspired!