I want a school room -- no fair!

[Nestof3]

:D

 

That is all.

 

Seriously, I could make one amazing school room. Can I just make someone else's? I cannot believe I will never have the joy of organizing an entire school room. I drool when I think of:

 

the science center we would have with micrscopes, aquariums, collections

 

the reading nook with cozy chairs and pillows -- soft lighting

 

the flip-though maps (you know, those poster racks they have at stores? I want something like that for maps)

 

the art center with a sink of course and laundry line for hanging things up to dry

 

the art prints and CD player with lots of great, old music

 

AGGHHHHHH -- I cannot take it.

 

Back to my wine and peanuts. :drool:

[Mom-ninja.]

You can come to my house and put our room together.

 

I'm not a decorator or a planner.

[Georgiana Daniels]

I feel your pain!

 

We don't have one either. Each of my kids has a milk crate with all their stuff, as that is all the room we have. Sigh. At least they are still young:)

[Jennay]

Hey - I'm just down the road in Maryland. You can come and organize my school room! :)

[anneofalamo]

no school room here, but we rearrange our dining room/class room on a regular basis...our computer labs sit upon the wooden tv trays, with matching chairs now.

We have graduated from the wall posters, they no longer adorn our walls! okay so the hallway does have an on going timeline, but we love that timeline!!

[alpidarkomama]

We are fortunate to have one, but all that fits in there is a table w/5 chairs (one for each of us) and a bunch of bookshelves. :) Anything else and it would be too crowded!

 

The flip-through maps are such a GREAT idea! What do you call those flip things? Can you get them anywhere???

[LittleIzumi]

Mine is called, "The Living Room." :lol: That way I can print out whatever we need on the fly. And not get off my chair :o.

[zaichiki]

Instead of a school room, you could little "nooks" all over the house. I'm seeing a shelf in the dining room with microscope stuff on it, two aquariums in the living room near bookshelves and soft lighting, art prints on the wall in the kitchen (if it is big enough you could put a small table there for art projects and hang a line over it). Don't forget the bathroom: that's a great place for artwork!

 

Seriously -- use the whole house! Utilize the flexibility of homeschooling. Give the kids the gift of moving all over the house (art in the kitchen after lunch, science in the dining room, reading in the living room, math on the floor in a bedroom if they like).

 

We tend to do schoolish stuff all day. Confined to a "school room?" No thanks.

[Georgia On My Mind]

:iagree:I really like the idea of using the whole house and why not the yard, garage, basement, etc. as well?

[kbed0849]

If it makes you feel better we have a "school room" and we end up all over the house! I LOVE the idea of the flip through maps. Any idea where to get the flip poster holder????

[hsbaby]

Well, we have a school room.... But it's nowhere near as awesome as the one you envision!! It is a small room with barely enough space for our desks, computer, and bookshelves. Now I am drooling over your idea of a school room as well! And if it makes you feel any better, the kids would prefer to NOT be stuck in a room all day:)

[Tess in the Burbs]

well I have a 'room' here but no cash to fill it with the things I want!!! Like a microscope, *sigh*

[Blueridge]

Didn't I see once on your lovely blog a precious cottage-type building in your garden? Have you considered making it into a school room?

[SailorMom]

Our school room is nice - but no - not anywhere near that nice! I do have a ton of cabinet space, and enough room to bring out the microscope when we need it. But we actually have two computers back there, and the printer - it is amazing how little desk space we actually have left over!

[Mommee & Baba]

Let me be another to say that even though we have a school room area in our home....the kids prefer to do their penmanship on clipboards lying on their bed. They really enjoy doing math outside on the front porch on nice breezy days and they love doing geography curled up on the sofa reading about the country or at the kitchen table while I wash dishes....LOL!! So even though we have a room that is for school things....it's nothing like you mentioned...and it's not big enough for what I'd want to make it but it works and we only do half of our school in there because the kids get eager, bouncy and unfocused if stuck in the room at a desk during the entire time of school. So I break it up a little and use the yard and the house.:001_smile:

[Guest aquiverfull]

Oh yes, I know EXACTLY how you feel. I would LOVE a school room. I really need one, I have all this stuff with no where to put it. It's unlikely I'll ever have one though. :(

[Nestof3]

We are fortunate to have one, but all that fits in there is a table w/5 chairs (one for each of us) and a bunch of bookshelves. :) Anything else and it would be too crowded!

 

The flip-through maps are such a GREAT idea! What do you call those flip things? Can you get them anywhere???

 

I honestly don't know what they're called. :)

[Nestof3]

Yes, but it would be a great place to have all of that set up -- it would be like walking into little museums. :)

 

Let me be another to say that even though we have a school room area in our home....the kids prefer to do their penmanship on clipboards lying on their bed. They really enjoy doing math outside on the front porch on nice breezy days and they love doing geography curled up on the sofa reading about the country or at the kitchen table while I wash dishes....LOL!! So even though we have a room that is for school things....it's nothing like you mentioned...and it's not big enough for what I'd want to make it but it works and we only do half of our school in there because the kids get eager, bouncy and unfocused if stuck in the room at a desk during the entire time of school. So I break it up a little and use the yard and the house.:001_smile:

[Nestof3]

Thank you, yes. It is a gardening shed/storage for my husband's landscaping equipment that he doesn't use on a regular basis -- aerator, dethatcher, spreader, bags of seed, fertilizer, tiller, etc.

 

My gardening things are in there too: pots, stakes, bird seed, etc.

 

Didn't I see once on your lovely blog a precious cottage-type building in your garden? Have you considered making it into a school room?

[Nestof3]

I pretty much do this, except we don't have a dining room, and we only have a family room (not a den and living room). So, the bookshelves are in the family room (along with the play area LOL), and on the play area side is my "science center."

 

Maps and posters of what we are studying in science are in the kitchen along with a couple of pictures for our artist study adhered to our refrigerator.

 

Bookshelves are also scattered around the house.

 

Current homeschooling material is in our office.

 

I'll take photos sometime since it does look clean and ready now. :)

 

:D

 

Instead of a school room, you could little "nooks" all over the house. I'm seeing a shelf in the dining room with microscope stuff on it, two aquariums in the living room near bookshelves and soft lighting, art prints on the wall in the kitchen (if it is big enough you could put a small table there for art projects and hang a line over it). Don't forget the bathroom: that's a great place for artwork!

 

Seriously -- use the whole house! Utilize the flexibility of homeschooling. Give the kids the gift of moving all over the house (art in the kitchen after lunch, science in the dining room, reading in the living room, math on the floor in a bedroom if they like).

 

We tend to do schoolish stuff all day. Confined to a "school room?" No thanks.

[ElizabethB]

We moved a month ago.

 

We are good except the office/school room. Want to come help?

 

How about a little shed you can use in the fall and spring for homeschooling? I always thought that would be fun!!

[MrsMe]

You can come and organize mine. I have no walls. Good luck with that.:tongue_smilie:

[ChrisOR]

Seriously, I could make one amazing school room. Can I just make someone else's? I cannot believe I will never have the joy of organizing an entire school room. I drool when I think of:

 

 

 

We have lived in three (almost 4) homes since we began homeschooling 3 years ago. Of the three, my favorite for homeschooling was one that we used the sunny great room as the schoolroom. I hung the maps, put out the nature supplies, lined the room with our book shelves, put our round school table (an old oak coffee table that adjusts in height) with small chairs in the book corner. I was going for a Pottery Barn "academic chic" kind of look, or how a cool schoolroom looks in a movie. I loved it. It was my husband's idea to just homeschool where we lived ... in the great room.

 

I love your ideas for a schoolroom and think you should just do it in the space you have currently.

 

My next home does have an extra bedroom, so I guess we'll try out the schoolroom idea this time around and see how we like it. I think I will miss the educational decorations in the great room though.

[Capt_Uhura]

You and me both! We just bought a new house. It was the large house, with large taxes, in the middle of a huge development, but w/ 5 bedrooms, and a formal living room and huge walk-out basement. The formal living room would have been my home school room. Instead we chose the smaller house, 4 bedrooms, no formal living room, small basement but 3.5acres, no one behind us for MILES, nothing but protected woodlands, privacy in the back of our house, and large front yard w/ lots of trees and wild animals, and lower taxes.....but no school room. And at night when I go to bed, nothing but silence, sweet silence, no cars, no light pollution...but no school room.

 

Here's the plan so far. The kids have bookshelves in their rooms for their books. DD3.5 has a lot of board books etc in her room. I need to put one more bookshelf in the boys room. They are currently sharing a room which is the size of a two car garage so it works well for them. That leaves one bedroom as a guest room/office. The inlaws come for a week about every 2-3months. DH needs an office. It's the smallest bedroom so not good for a HS room. In the closet I have a bookshelf which has all of our math books, curriculum and manipulatives. We will soon design a closet system w/ half being for clothes for guests, and the other half being floor to ceiling shelves so it will hold a lot more than math. There is 1 IKEA Billy book case which has history, science, art, poetry and music on it. THere is a shorter book shelf which has science and history curricula. We have a small desk which has my iMac but we need a full size computer desk so you can work on it and have the computer off to the side. In my bedroom I have a bookshelf for books I'm reading and others like WTM, resources, etc.

 

The only thing I don't have placed yet is literature. I need one more bookshelf for lit books and lit guides, Teaching the Classics, Reading Strands, Dec Penguins etc. This might be the bookshelf which goes in the boys room.

 

NOw in the dining room, I want to buy a nice cabinet which has doors to house the daily/weekly HS supplies such as WWE, math curriculum, notebooks, pens/pencils, paper, daily logs etc. Something that when it's closed, it looks like a china cabinet. The top part might hold our wine rack etc. The 1st floor is beautiful all day long. That is where we will all naturally gravitate to. So I'm sure we'll all end up at the kitchen table in front of the bay window over looking miles of woodland. When I need to separate the boys, one can work in the dining room while the other works at the kitchen table. DD3.5 can be close by in the family room doing puzzles or drawing.

 

This way, the downstairs area is clear of HS stuff as DH likes it.

 

Oh yes, in the basement will be shelves that will house all the numerous science kits we own, microscopes, LEGO Science kits, etc.

 

It's not ideal but may things in life involve compromise.....

[Geo]

:D

 

That is all.

 

Seriously, I could make one amazing school room. Can I just make someone else's? I cannot believe I will never have the joy of organizing an entire school room. I drool when I think of:

 

 

the flip-though maps (you know, those poster racks they have at stores? I want something like that for maps)

Back to my wine and peanuts. :drool:

 

I found it...but can you afford it? Cheapest one runs $343...

 

http://www.jjdisplay.com/products/poster/index.htm?gclid=CMLrsKuZ26MCFZBd2god0mD0Qg

 

Or maybe you'd prefer a wallmount style:

http://www.bizchair.com/698ug-10-br.html

 

 

ah, dreams...where checkbooks know no limits...

 

I, on the other hand, always wanted the retractable pull-down maps. I've thought about buying pull-down shades, applying spray adhesive to the back of a map and slappin' it on.

Hmmm, wonder if it would work? I would want two, World and U.S...

 

Geo

Edited August 28, 2010 by Geo

[Forget-Me-Not]

^ Yeah, I was just gonna say. . . they're called 'poster display racks' and yowza are they pricey!

[Nestof3]

^ Yeah, I was just gonna say. . . they're called 'poster display racks' and yowza are they pricey!

 

:iagree: How can something like that cost so much?

[Guest]

Because they can. Same as anything specially made. Ridiculous.

 

We moved about 2 months ago and my 'school room' is crated by 2 bookcaese blocking the open formal living/dining combo room. The other side is the playroom. One bookcase has supplies, the other school books. My older boys' work in their rooms while my bonus student works with me at the kitchen bar or table. You make it work. Granted, I do not have a huge curriculum collection to house. I do have a LARGE ET center that has glass enclosed shelves down both sides housing more books and such. But for us, that's it. It works.

Edited August 28, 2010 by Guest

[kalanamak]

 

the science center

 

the reading nook with cozy chairs and pillows -- soft lighting

 

the flip-though maps

 

the art center

 

the art prints

 

AGGHHHHHH -- I cannot take it.

 

 

 

I try to remind myself of all the cleaning and dusting required for extra space. Just because sour grapes is pooh-poohed doesn't mean it doesn't help. :)

 

I feel lucky just to have a room with a desk, some bookshelves, and a decent closet. Not enough space for the above, but someplace I don't have to fight with to put supper on the table.

[Irishmommy]

Convert half your garage! That's what we did... We never parked the cars in there anyway!

[Irishmommy]

I found it...but can you afford it? Cheapest one runs $343...

 

http://www.jjdisplay.com/products/poster/index.htm?gclid=CMLrsKuZ26MCFZBd2god0mD0Qg

 

Or maybe you'd prefer a wallmount style:

http://www.bizchair.com/698ug-10-br.html

 

 

ah, dreams...where checkbooks know no limits...

 

I, on the other hand, always wanted the retractable pull-down maps. I've thought about buying pull-down shades, applying spray adhesive to the back of a map and slappin' it on.

Hmmm, wonder if it would work? I would want two, World and U.S...

 

Geo

What about one of those stand-up pocket chart hanger things? Those are pretty cheap. You could just laminate your maps (they'd have to be the smaller kind) and slide them over your rings...

Here it is

http://www.discountschoolsupply.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?product=21965&keyword=pocket%20chart%20stand&scategoryid=0&CategorySearch=&Brand=&Price=

[MariannNOVA]

:D

 

That is all.

 

Seriously, I could make one amazing school room. Can I just make someone else's? I cannot believe I will never have the joy of organizing an entire school room. I drool when I think of:

 

the science center we would have with micrscopes, aquariums, collections

 

the reading nook with cozy chairs and pillows -- soft lighting

 

the flip-though maps (you know, those poster racks they have at stores? I want something like that for maps)

 

the art center with a sink of course and laundry line for hanging things up to dry

 

the art prints and CD player with lots of great, old music

 

AGGHHHHHH -- I cannot take it.

 

Back to my wine and peanuts. :drool:

 

I hear you! One of the things I loved most about being a classroom teacher was getting my room ready for the beginning of the year (and getting it ready for the changes in season during the year) and hearing my class and usually all the other classes in the school OOOH and AAAAH when they walked by.

 

The year I taught 4th grade, the teachers of the lower grades would bring their classes to 'visit' and show them what a beautiful room they would have when they were older.

 

Our classroom was ruined when the repairs were made to the water damaged rooms in our room -- we had taught all of 8 weeks, and then that happened. The room is being ripped apart now, new walls are going up, new flooring is going down, and my fingers are crossed that in about three weeks, we can start our school year.

 

Our classroom will be just a part of a huge great room that will be multi-purpose. But, I will be so happy to have a clean, organized space where we can have school.

[Annie Laurie]

I have a big school room we love and appreciate having, but it doesn't have many of the things you mentioned. And I think those things would be awesome too! No plumbing in that room, so no sink. I would love a big art area. So even with a school room, you don't always get to deck out it out the way you'd like, I had to consider my budget too. Don't know if that makes you feel any better, but there it is.

[chadzwife]

I would take a *trailer* out in the middle of nowhere, taxes beside the point, w/hardly enough bed space than a 5-er in a development. Capt Uhura u chose well. :) Now if u don't succumb to running the kids to town for this and that to "make up for it" (subconsciously of course{!}) and maybe even get them some animals or other skilled stuff to learn out there on yer back 40 lol---they'll be sooooo much better off. Math on ur bed is character-buildin' ;)

[brijen97]

I agree...I am also jealous! Not only do we have school stuff all over the place but we do in home day care. :0) I wanted a cheap coffee table that I could paint with chalkboard paint. The day care kids could color.....may daughter can practice so many things on it. We were given a coffee table then I started to worry about using colors so we could have it look "grown up" when we wanted it to.....then thought, why?? Can't hide the rest of the stuff!!! I figure in 20 years or so I can have a "nice" house.......

[Capt_Uhura]

I would take a *trailer* out in the middle of nowhere, taxes beside the point, w/hardly enough bed space than a 5-er in a development. Capt Uhura u chose well. :) Now if u don't succumb to running the kids to town for this and that to "make up for it" (subconsciously of course{!}) and maybe even get them some animals or other skilled stuff to learn out there on yer back 40 lol---they'll be sooooo much better off. Math on ur bed is character-buildin' ;)

 

Chadzwife - You are so right! I took the kids to look at the other houses that were on our short list. All three kids agreed we made the right choice! They love the woods, they love the yard - we have about an acre or more of usable property, the rest is woodlands. We have turkey vultures, turtles, frogs in our yard. Yesterday we all sat on the deck and watched a female red tale hawk. She was so close to us. The best thing of all is the silence. I sat and ate breakfast on my deck and it was heavenly. A homeschool room could NOT make up for the quality of life we will have in this house!

 

Capt_Uhura

[Nestof3]

Well, since my husband services lawns in the city, this would add a lot of travel time to his work day. Plus, I actually like the suburbs. :)

 

I would take a *trailer* out in the middle of nowhere, taxes beside the point, w/hardly enough bed space than a 5-er in a development. Capt Uhura u chose well. :) Now if u don't succumb to running the kids to town for this and that to "make up for it" (subconsciously of course{!}) and maybe even get them some animals or other skilled stuff to learn out there on yer back 40 lol---they'll be sooooo much better off. Math on ur bed is character-buildin' ;)

[Satori]

I'm also one who prefers to live in quiet nature rather than be surrounded by civilization. Capt_Uhura, your place sounds like a dream.

 

Dawn, I wish you could come and help decorate our homeschool rooms. We seem to have turned our whole house into a homeschool house. We've got the art/science room with the sink, reading nook, art atelier, up in the mountains with no neighbors... but I am more of a techy geek and wish I had someone to help me design and make it all look pretty!

[angela in ohio]

If you have a school room, though, then you have to clean a school room. :D I just finished two days of cleaning, organizing, and refilling. :ack2:

 

We turned the "formal living room" (it's a country house, but they had a formal living room of sorts in the front,) into the school room, with dh adding a folding door to shut if off when we have company. It has a huge window overlooking the front yard and the fields across the road from us.

 

I will cry for you, because it really, really is nice to have a set room to keep everything. We don't spend all of our school time in there, of course, but just having one place with everything availabel is great. Are you sure the kids all need bedrooms?

[Nestof3]

Aaron has his own bedroom (about 9 ft x 11 ft) and Nathan and Ben (about 9 ft x 9 ft) share one. They are pretty cramped as it is. Our bedroom is not much larger than Aaron's. The whole house is about 1,100 sq ft.

 

Are you sure the kids all need bedrooms?