If you have a separate school room

[SewingMom2many]

I'd love to hear about your decision to do a designate a room for school.

 

If you have a separate school room, do you find that many of your school things end up outside the school room?

 

Are you glad you made a separate school room or did you end up just going back to using the kitchen table?

 

I'm considering making a school room in our basement. It's finished and there are windows so I think it will be ok down there. The thing is, many of our things are used in the kitchen when I'm making dinner or cleaning the house. So do they go downstairs or in the kitchen or do I get duplicates?

 

The basement for us is not like I can just run down there because first, there is a baby gate in the way which is a pain, then I have a baby who can't get down the stairs himself and I have to make sure we have all of our supplies before we go down (cell phone in case dh calls, diaper/wipes, binkies, my tea or Diet Coke, etc) so it's sort of a project to even get down there. I do think it would be great to have everything organized in one place though!!

 

I've searched the forum and found some great pictures but if you have a link with pictures of your school room I'd really love to see them for inspiration.

 

Thank you so much for any advice you have for me!

[newbie]

I was excited to have designated school room in this house, but I put it upstairs.

 

Little bit of a pain, gets hot up here and always going up and down, so in new house will be on same floor, even though we have a room upstairs for it too. It will be nice to have all on one floor, than things dont get dragged all over, I am hoping.

[mrs.m]

We homeschool in the basement. ;) It's a finished walk-out. I just re-organized so my pics aren't current. It is also our family room so it is pretty comfy and spacious. I have a kitchen table for the kids to sit at which also doubles as a nice place to play games when we aren't schooling.

 

We did move upstairs every now and then for a change of scenary. I keep the kids' books in dishpans so we are portable.

[Remudamom]

Our schoolroom is right off the kitchen and I loved it. We don't use it as much now that we're about finished. But when we did it was glorious. I could start laundry or cook and be right on top of the school stuff too.

 

Basement sounds kinda removed. If you could use a more convenient room I would.

[mrs.m]

The basement is removed. BUT that's the good part. I'm focused on school and not on all the other things that need to be done for the day. I finish my chores upstairs before we start! Laundry is in the basement, so I will bring it for folding while the kids work. I'm easily distracted and can't really do two things at once. :D

[SewingMom2many]

Thanks for the replies - that is a good point about being away from the cleaning and other distractions on purpose :) I do have cleaning times scheduled into my day so maybe it would be for the best to be down there.

 

Can I ask how much time you spend in your school rooms per day?

[KellyinPA]

We moved into this home last October and designated one of the upstairs bedrooms for a school room. I love it! For the most part we do everything up there. Sometimes the boys work on the laptop in the kitchen or we read on the downstairs sofa or need to use the kitchen for science experiments BUT most seatwork is done in the schoolroom. I find I get less distracted that way. I just try to bring my tea, phone etc. with me and we just stay there for 2-3 hours until we are done with that part of school.

[elegantlion]

Our formal dining room is our classroom. We also have an eat-in kitchen and with 3 of us we don't need a huge space in the kitchen to eat. I LOVE having our own space. We use our former dining table, a nice rectangle table, it's perfect to spread out.

[mrs.m]

Thanks for the replies - that is a good point about being away from the cleaning and other distractions on purpose :) I do have cleaning times scheduled into my day so maybe it would be for the best to be down there.

 

Can I ask how much time you spend in your school rooms per day?

 

Most of the morning and about 1-2 hours after lunch depending on what we are working on (History and Science). The kids can do independent reading in the afternoon in a location of their choice.

 

I didn't invest any money in furniture at first because I wasn't sure if we would end up moving to the kitchen table. So maybe you can set-up something to try it and if it doesn't work, it won't be so hard to move.

[ChristusG]

I just recently designated a school room. We'll begin using it soon....I just did it a few weeks ago so we haven't used it during the school year yet.

 

At first I wasn't going to make one. I figured we'd just end up at the kitchen table anyways. But DD was constantly distracted. She'd see her little sister playing in the living room, there were toys sitting around the house, she'd want food from the kitchen while doing school....everything was just so much of a distraction. So I decided to make our smallest bedroom into a school room. It used to be a guest bedroom that was rarely used.

 

I'm not going to allow toys into the school room....at all. If DD3 wants to join us in the school room then that is fine, but no toys allowed. She can color in there, do lacing cards, etc. And we only eat in the kitchen so I wont have to worry about food distractions. Hopefully this will all work out well. And also someone mentioned something about cleaning....I won't have to look at toys scattered around the room and think about putting them away, or worry about the dishes in the sink, etc.

[Mimm]

I love the basement idea and I wish I could do something like that. We have two living areas and so for me it's a matter of moving some furniture around and making a school area in one side of the room. This will be our first year homeschooling, so I can't really talk about the practicalities of it, but I homeschooled as a child and for a while we had a schoolroom. We loved it. It was great to be able to close the door and school was put away and we could focus on family life. The schoolroom would get messy, books stacked up, papers everywhere, etc, but that was ok, because it wasn't getting into the rest of the house. Later my mom had more babies and the room had to be used for a bedroom and we did school at the dining room table and we liked it a lot less. There wasn't a place in the dining room to have books and supplies so we were forever carrying things back and forth. We had to clean it up every evening to get ready for dinner.

 

My experience growing up is why I am creating a school area instead of just using my dining room table. I read comments from people disparaging the idea of "school at home", and maybe I'll end up not using it as much as I think I will. But for now, I think it'll be quite good for us. Both girls have desks of their own and I have my own desk. We have shelves for books, bins for supplies, and yes, even a wipe off board. It's not a separate room but I like the idea that all school stuff belongs in this area and we can walk away from it at the end of our day without an involved clean up. School can happen anywhere, and just because we have a place for school doesn't mean that cuddling up on couches with a book is just out of the question or something.

[LaissezFaire]

Our schoolroom is through a very large pass-through that connects to the kitchen/living room. Because of this nothing really trickles out. I could be in the kitchen making lunch or in the living room and see right into the school room so no one ever feels isolated in there. We are fortunate that we built our schoolroom so I designed it that way. I know when people have a room that is closed off from the house it doesn't always work as nicely.

[Shelly in the Country]

Our school room is in ...the foyer. It's a little odd, I know, but it's the only extra space we have. I used to just use our dining room, which was kinda hectic now that I look back on it. We'd have to clear breakfast dishes before school would start, and we'd have to clear "school" from the table in order to eat lunch. We had been using a breakfast nook-style table in our dining room (a carryover from our old house where we had an eat-in kitchen). We decided to upgrade to a real dining set and didn't know what to do with the old nook. After going back and forth about it, my dh suggested we move it to the foyer and use it as a school table. I was skeptical, but it fit perfectly into one corner of the foyer. I have room for one bookcase, a stereo for CD's, a cart with school supplies and a small desk for my 4yo. Off to one side of the foyer there was enough space to stick in a workstation with a laptop as well. It's cozy in there, but it works for us. My "teacher's desk" is still in the dining room. That would be my only quibble with the set up. It would be nicer if I were in the same room. Because of the size of the room, we do have spillover into other areas of the house. I have other bookcases throughout the house that hold our books from other years. I keep my TMs in a bookcase near my desk. I really like having a separate schoolroom.

[Samiam]

We've always had a school room since we started HSing..when DS12 was in 1st. Not sure how I would live without one (although I know it's entirely possible, and many do just fine :).

 

We've moved several times.

 

House 1: Old restored bungalow style with add-on living room/master bedroom...so front part of house had the old "sitting room, I guess it would have been, and the dining room. We used neither space, as we used the living room to live, kitchen and bedrooms. Oh, and we didn't eat at the table just sat on couch, and DS used a little table, middle DS was still in high chair. So ended up using the formal dining room as school room/computer room. We didn't have near as much school stuff then, since had just started and onlying schooling one. Toys were in boy's rooms, each had their own.

 

House 2: This was a brand new house in planned development. Technically four bedroom, but the fourth bedroom was relatively small and no closet, so really it was just office space. This was school room/computer area. School stuff was collecting, but still not alot, and still only schooling one. Toys were in boy's room, larger ones were in formal dining along with air hockey table.

 

House 3: Three bedroom townhome, 2000 sq ft. Upstairs was 3bed, and large loft area. Two DS, age 8 and 4 by this point, shared a room, and third bedroom was school room/computer room, and baby DS co-slept with us. Loft was all toys...no toys in the bedroom. Following year, when 2nd DS was going to start participating with schoolwork, school stuff had really started to accumulate, I decided the 3rd bedroom was too small for all the stuff, and to get all of us in there comfortably. So then I went crazy :). I switched out the huge master bedroom for the school room. We moved our bed, and dresser into the 3rd bedroom (really, the only time we are in there is at night so WHY did we need this massive bedroom). We still used the master bedroom closet and bathroom as ours. The master bedroom was now the school room. We had a large table, two computer desks, two bookcases, couple of shelves, filing cabinet, lots of wall space, and room to move...loved it! Plus loft was right out the door, so little ones could play and I could hear them while we worked.

 

Now house four: We recently moved to another state, and while looking at houses, and now knowing that baby DS, now 4 and wanting to do schoolwork, plus DS7 and DS12...there's alot of us in the space, so I looked for a floor plan that would allow for school space. We REALLY wanted a finished walk-out basement (first time we have lived in an area that you could have that since we were married, no basements in coastal SC or FL :).....thought that would be perfect....use most of it as school room and part of it as toy room. That didn't happen, but we did get a 3 bedroom, with this weird office room. I guess that is what the intention was for....it has no closet, no door (but door is wide like intended for french door), and NO light...not even a hole in the ceiling to install one...but has a switch..weird. So this was the obvious choice for school room. Formal dining room is the toy room, and this is right across the entry hallway, so again I can hear everything. DS7 and DS4 share a room, DS12 is has his own, and we're back to the masterbedroom.

 

At this point, we have ALOT of supplies for HSing, lots of books (actually have to stack many on the floor at the moment as gave little DS's a bookcase for their room, so now I am in need of one.

 

I know it is a blessing to have a schoolroom. I could survive without, but glad I don't need to at the moment :).

[LarlaB]

We turned the formal living room into our homeschool room. We do 75% of our work there and everything is store there. I LOVE having an entire room dedicated to books, storage, supplies etc- it helps us stay better organized.

 

My only complaint is that we simply don't get sunlight in that room even though there are 2 large windows.

 

Towards the end of the year, we gravitated more towards the eat in kitchen table which is fully bathed in sunlight and everyone was happier- LOL But I think because the eat-in kitchen area is open to the family room & kitchen & hallway, it felt more central as is the heart of the house- and therefore more natural feeling than being tucked away in a single-use room.

 

So its not my ideal, placement wise, but is a beautiful thing to have a school room on our main floor. :)

[Guest]

Our schoolroom is through a very large pass-through that connects to the kitchen/living room. Because of this nothing really trickles out. I could be in the kitchen making lunch or in the living room and see right into the school room so no one ever feels isolated in there. We are fortunate that we built our schoolroom so I designed it that way. I know when people have a room that is closed off from the house it doesn't always work as nicely.

 

My formal dining room is in between the kitchen and living room. You have to pass through it to get to either. This is what we use for our school room. Since it sounds similar to yours, how do you keep it neat looking? I try to keep it looking like a dining room, since it's in the middle and can be seen so clearly. However, it's hard when it needs to be used for school. Does yours look like a homeschool room?

 

We turned the formal living room into our homeschool room. We do 75% of our work there and everything is store there. I LOVE having an entire room dedicated to books, storage, supplies etc- it helps us stay better organized.

 

My only complaint is that we simply don't get sunlight in that room even though there are 2 large windows.

 

Towards the end of the year, we gravitated more towards the eat in kitchen table which is fully bathed in sunlight and everyone was happier- LOL But I think because the eat-in kitchen area is open to the family room & kitchen & hallway, it felt more central as is the heart of the house- and therefore more natural feeling than being tucked away in a single-use room.

 

So its not my ideal, placement wise, but is a beautiful thing to have a school room on our main floor. :)

 

Same to you... does yours also "look like a schoolroom" or more like a dining room?

[AppleGreen]

We love our school room! We finally did some much needed house construction last fall that enabled us to designate one room for school. We did another project this summer that opened the other downstairs bedroom for us, so we use the old master bedroom as our school room, then there is a bathroom that is connected to the other bedroom that is now the playroom. We do the majority of our school in the school room, except for snuggling on the couch during (some) read alouds, some we do in the school room.

 

I like that our stuff does not migrate, but that it is close to our hub and living space. My kids do art projects and often play games (b/c we have little hands that get into them!) behind the closed door of the school room. I like having our books for school in a dedicated space and the teacher in me loves displaying thematic books and work the kids are proud of on bulletin boards. We had been schooling in our dining room and it really was too much for us. I love being able to close the door and walk away for a bit when I need to.

 

I am not sure a removed space would work for us, b/c we like being close to the bathroom, provisions and play space for little people. I also think the fact that we have 4 young kids contributes to our need for dedicated spaces. It may look very different if we only had 2 children or our kids were older, but this is where we are now.

 

I have spent the summer re-vamping and updating our space and we are really looking forward to getting back to our business of school in a couple of weeks (well, some of us more than others! ;)).

[Lightly Salted]

Ours is a finished garage, right off the living room and very close to the laundry room/kitchen. I LOVE having a separate space! We school at an old kitchen table, have 3 computer stations, tons of bookshelves and a little reading nook (couch, rug, lamp table and even a puzzle table). The shelves hold all the kids' board games and building sets (lego, lincoln logs, etc) which are used to keep people busy during read-alouds. One whole wall is windows ... so lots of great sunlight. It's not beautiful, but very useful. We all hang out in here a lot even when it's not school.

[Mrs Mungo]

We have a separate school room, but it's a room attached to our detached garage. It has its own bathroom/fridge and we spend the bulk of the day out there. They read at the bar while I make lunch. Otherwise, most everything stays outside. I have computers and a separate printer for the schoolroom.

 

I don't clean during the school day, but we're also not inside messing up the house. My dh is totally anti-having-school-stuff-everywhere, he likes to have a nice house. So, the schoolroom works for us.

 

We have crayons for the schoolroom and crayons for the house. Is that what you mean by getting duplicates? I'm not sure what you're asking about there.