Am I the only one that doesn't 'want' a school room?

[keyjoh62080]

I have been lurking around and looking at all the school room pictures (the BEAUTIFUL school room pictures). When we first started homeschooling last year we created a homeschool room and I hated it. For some reason I LOVE being in the kitchen at my dining room table. The books are all spread out and we have everything we need there.

 

I was just wondering if there were any others like that? We didn't like being confined to a certain room in the house. We do the bulk of our school in the kitchen and then the rest on the couch in the living room. Am I the only one like this? LOL!

 

We do have bookshelves in our lounge area with all of our supplies in a cabinet. I must say that I feel like I live in my kitchen...between school, breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner and a little more school...we are in there all day. Well atleast I am :D

[ByGrace3]

We have a school room, but we don't always use it. I love having it. It is a great place to organize everything, store everything, have a "kid" size table for writing projects and handwriting practice. However, often we "do school" at the kitchen table. Especially if dd is working on something semi independently, that way she can be close to the kitchen/living areas and I am available if she needs me. I wouldn't want to give up my school room, but I don't feel chained to it either.

[Lily_Grace]

Nope! You are definitely not alone!

 

We have a school room that is mainly used for storage. It's also a quiet area because the baby is not allowed in yet (at least without being held!) We school all over, though. Yesterday we went from the pool to the kitchen to the driveway to the upstairs hall...and finally back at the kitchen table for writing work. :D Just because we have a pretty room to store things doesn't mean we stay there!

[warneral]

I don't want want. Partly b/c I don't have one LOL. No but really, we like doing school in the dining room which is connected to teh kitchen and at the living room couch/floor. This allows me to change a load of laundry or wash off a counter as time permits. It WOULD be nice to have more places to keep books and map posters and white boards, but I'd still want to do school in the living space of the house.

[Spryte]

I'm right there with you.

 

Last year, after K, I kept seeing such beautiful pics of school rooms. So I converted our guest room into a fabulous school room. It looked great! And it *was* great, until about the second week of first grade - when I realized that we just aren't school room people, we migrate all over the house. It was good for storage, though. :)

 

Now I have areas set up around the house, based on our activities in that area.

 

And the school room has been converted to a nursery.

 

 

 

 

I still love seeing the school room pics, and dreaming that we would use one. It is very difficult to fight the urge to create another school room. So maybe, I want one after all... (In fact, I am in the process of purging a lot of our school room furniture and supplies so that I don't get carried away again. Freecycle, here I come!)

[Ellie]

I would just have liked a big ol' closet to put stuff in. I didn't really want a whole 'nother room, either.

[ChandlerMom]

I don't get the feeling most families with schoolrooms "just" school in the schoolroom. We don't. :D Having a schoolroom just means having a space to organize school related stuff, shelves/drawers for the kiddos (no longer in my office) to get/put their materials and some comfy/quiet workspace(s) to use, esp when I'm working with a sibling in a different room. :)

[5LittleMonkeys]

I like our setup. We have an open floor plan; kitchen, dining room, living room. I love being able to work in the kitchen getting snacks ready, lunch prepared, or dinner prepped while the dc sit at the dining room table and work. We can continue talking back and forth and I can answer questions while I work. It's also great that one can be working at the table and me and another can move into the living room to work. I'm still close enough to make sure the one at the table stays on task. The 2yo and 5yo can play in the living room or watch a program in the office, which is right off the kitchen and they are always within ear shot and viewing distance.

 

I don't know how on earth I would be able to manage a 2yo in a scool "room"...she would destroy everything! We keep all of our supplies in our 2 car garage in the area I set up as a craft\play area. It's right off of the living room. Basically I took half the garage and lined it with shelves and cabinets, put down a rug and a table and chairs. If we are doing a really messy project we move out there and there are toys and plenty of floor space for the littles to play.

 

Maybe if all my dc were older and I had a personal chef to prepare all the meals I would like a dedicated school room but....yah, probably not gonna happen.:tongue_smilie:

[RoundAbout]

You're not the only one. I love being able to cook in the kitchen while my son does projects at the table. It seems so homey to me. No interest in a school room here.

[jenangelcat]

I love looking at other people's schoolrooms but I don't think I'd use one myself. We have built in bookcases in our living room and dining room. The computer is on a side table in the living room, there's a desk and large table in the dining room, the kitchen is home to the laptop. We do school where we feel like it. This might be on the couch or at the table, outside etc.

[AppleGreen]

I don't get the feeling most families with schoolrooms "just" school in the schoolroom. We don't. :D Having a schoolroom just means having a space to organize school related stuff, shelves/drawers for the kiddos (no longer in my office) to get/put their materials and some comfy/quiet workspace(s) to use, esp when I'm working with a sibling in a different room. :)

 

:iagree: Mine is currently trashed b/c my kids are always doing craft projects in the school room. We've done the DR table thing and were so happy to make the switch to a dedicated space, it has made our lives and schooling much saner. If no dedicated space works for you-go for it! It definitely frees space. I'd love to have our dedicated school space for my stuff...maybe in 20 years! One more beautiful thing about homeschooling-it is infinitely adaptable to YOUR lifestyle! :)

[americanadiangirl]

We don't have a school room either, due to having a very small house(1000sq. feet or so)

Last school year being our first official year without a newborn nursing baby to contend night and day with, I set up a separate table(dining table from Ikea) so I don't have to clear the dining room table off. We also bought an Expedit(sp?) 4x4 shelving unit from Ikea to help organize the materials. I do keep items less used down in another shelving unit in the basement.

But even in a bigger house, I doubt I would do school work in school room. Now a library/reading room would be nice! :)

 

I like to be able to work in the kitchen as well and still be close enough to hear narrations, memory work, answer questions and enjoy the presence of my children(most of the time, ha!)

 

So no, you're clearly not alone. :)

[JenneinCA]

I think it depends on the age of the kids.

 

My dd12 needs a quiet place to do her work. The kitchen table is too noisy and distracting. My ds7 needs my attention to do his work. The kitchen table is the right place to work with him. Ds10 needs some of both. Sometimes he needs me and sometimes he needs to be alone.

[jpklehm]

We had an empty room upstairs (old nursery, guest room for a while, etc.) that I decided last summer to turn into school room. I did it for several reasons. One, my husband now works from home and his study is downstairs. We were having to consider quite often how loud we were being. Two, our kitchen table was becoming too small and I was tired of sitting there so much of the time. Yes, it was convenient to be so close to the kitchen but honestly, I spend a lot of time there as it is, I didn't want to be there even more! We used the kitchen for seven years and I was getting tired of the view...I needed a new space! And three, the book shelf I had in our nook was becoming overly crowded (and a bit sightly) and it was a nuisance to have to go downstairs in the basement to our other shelves so often.

 

So, we can now not worry about being noisier, I get a break from the kitchen, and we're not squished all together at a table. I have all of our maps up on the wall now (which used to be in the basement with our bigger shelves, and weren't referred to very often) and we each have a desk to keep our supplies on. I find my sons looking at the maps and globe way more than they used to.

 

I have to say, though, that my husband liked us using the kitchen table. He always envisioned homeschooling to be in the kitchen, the heart of the home, and when I mentioned turning the unused room upstairs into a schoolroom, he was not enthusiastic about it at all. He wanted me to wait on painting it until we were sure it would be a success. Well, three weeks or so into the new school year he told me how nice it is to have the extra room being used the way we were using it and that he thinks it is a success...iow, I was right! :lol:

 

Even having the school room, we don't always stay in there, either. We still use our kitchen table (a little) and our comfy couch (every day)...reading history and science to my boys in our family room is one of my favorite things! There's a good reason the word "home" is in "homeschool!"

 

Pam

[jpklehm]

I think it depends on the age of the kids.

 

My dd12 needs a quiet place to do her work. The kitchen table is too noisy and distracting. My ds7 needs my attention to do his work. The kitchen table is the right place to work with him. Ds10 needs some of both. Sometimes he needs me and sometimes he needs to be alone.

 

:iagree:

[boscopup]

I think it depends on your house layout, your general furniture setup, and also just your personality.

 

We started out at the kitchen table. I couldn't do the dining room table because the top isn't smooth enough for writing. We also eat at the dining room table 3 times a day, and I didn't want to have to clear everything off each time. So kitchen table it was. While it was somewhat nice that I could cook and do school at the same time, I switched to the living room with school desks a few months ago and couldn't be happier! Each kid has their own space, which has made life so much easier for me. We also don't have trouble with the kitchen table always being cluttered. I don't have to go back and forth getting school books from the living room. I also can FOCUS on school instead of trying to multitask - cooking and teaching at the same time. Besides, if I focus on school, it's done before dinner anyway. :)

 

My plan for the future is to use my youngest's bedroom as our school room. I can't wait! I'll be able to put a nice, big white board up in there. Right now, I have a 2'x3' on an easel in the living room. It's the best I can do at the moment. There wasn't a place in the kitchen to put a white board, and I wasn't willing to sacrifice my pretty dining room walls for one either (especially since we can't write on the table easily in there anyway).

 

Perhaps with a different house layout (and more wall space!), I'd do fine without a school room, but in this house, I really will prefer to have one. I'm in school room limbo now, as the living room isn't really a school room, but it's better than the kitchen was. When we convert the upstairs bedroom to a school room, I won't be going back and forth as much between tasks, but again, I think that will be good for me, as I will be more focused on teaching the kids. Cooking and housework can be at different times. :)

 

But by all means, if you don't want a school room, don't have one! There's no law that says all homeschoolers must have/want/need one. :D

[catz]

To me it's all about the storage space - I love book shelves and bins to put stuff and we do have some of that. Could always have more. We do have a bit of a book crises going on at the moment and my DH and his book/comic/graphic novel addiction isn't helping any.

 

We have a dining room table and a kitchen table, so it'd feel like overkill to have more table/work space. Plus we live in an urban area in an older home (i.e. space is limited). We usually work in the dining room - we only eat there when we have guests.

[Jujudalu]

We are in a fairly transient phase of our lives between houses and between countries. We sold a house that we had lived in for 8 years and then rented for a while and are currently in a hotel.

 

We had a school room in the house that we sold and we used it fairly consistently. It was a deceptively large house. The street level had all the living spaces and was not overly large but it had a downstairs area which had been separated into several rooms and the laundry. We didn't need the downstairs rooms as bedrooms and experimented over the 8 years with different combinations of playroom, homeschool room and parent office space... moving them between rooms. In the end we did find a combination that worked well. The downstairs rooms opened out onto the garden and although not as light as upstairs had a nice aspect but still there was this psychological effect of going downstairs to do homeschooling.... which wasn't altogether positive....but there again there was this rush up the stairs for lunch when our work was done:001_smile:

 

We haven't had a homeschool room since we sold that house. In our first rental there was a large living area which provided ample space for kitchen, dining, lounge and homeschooling to be together but separated. That was nice since it meant things didn't fall apart if I had to check on lunch or the washing etc. It also allowed for more of a natural flow.

 

Right now we are in a one bedroom hotel "suite". We have a desktop and a couch. I am hankering after a homeschool room LOL.... and a house to go with it.

 

Still, such are the seasons of life. We have always read a lot and that has happened all over the spaces we have lived in. I can definitely see pros and cons to a homeschooling room (it's nice to be able to leave the books behind) but the more together/blended feeling of couch and dining room table is also nice. Still when we are looking to buy a house I will look for one that has at least the potential to have a homeschool room. Also, as my children get older I sense at least in the oldest that he would like to have a workspace of his own in his room so that may be part of the next move as well.

[KristenR]

I don't want a school room I want a schoolHOUSE!! I would happily and easily decorate my entire house to be a total immersion learning area if I had the time and my spouse was okay with it. As it is, dh has been pretty open minded when I start hanging posters and timelines in the living room, and up the stairwell. But we recently moved and the house a more open floorplan. My dh is no longer loving the idea of me spreading out again.

 

Luckily for me I never had a "Martha Stewart" decorative bone in my body so it would be very easy for me to give up coordinated-themed adult living in lieu of more child friendly areas.

But dh has expressed a desire to have the living room more adult-like than before and leave the learning displays to the designated schoolroom. I am trying to comply but our new school room has limited wall space.

 

I would love to be able to integrate the homeschooling aspect of our lives more thoroughly into our entire home since my dd would technically be starting K this year. I drool over pictures of Angela's house and designated learning zones. Sigh. I think if our house was bigger and my husband had an area or to he could get away to he would be fine with me taking over more space.

[Maus]

No interest in a school room here, but...

 

I would love to have a big library. The one in 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks' would do, or the one in 'My Fair Lady'....

 

I don't think I can add either on to my ranch-style house though.

[baybedaul]

We don't have a school room either, although the only two families we actually knew who were homeschooling before us said that having a separate school room was vital. We have an extra bedroom that I guess we could've converted (and I may one day takeover the closet space with school stuff!), but we really like school at the kitchen table. And even that is just for stuff like handwriting and craft projects. We do math around the coffee table in the living room and we do reading and phonics on the couch. Our "library" is in the family room and most of our books/supplies/workboxes etc are kept in a hall closet that I have claimed for school. I can see that it would be nice to have one big room with all of our supplies (instead of storing overflow in the attic and basement), but I think we would still move around the house a lot for the actual studying. I love looking at everyone's pictures though! They all look so nice and as long as it works for your family that is what's important of course. :)

[paceofnature]

I love to see all the beautiful rooms, but it would definitely not work for us. We have books and supplies stored in our dining room on shelves and drawers and posters are throughout the house (ABCs are in the living room, Earth Science in bedrooms, timeline in hall, maps in dining room). We do school wherever we happen to be...more often than not that is either the sofa or front porch. I don't want the kids to feel that learning must take place in one specific spot...and boy would they balk at sitting at a table ;)

[daffodil]

I like to dream about having a separate school room. Right now our stuff is all over the place. Art supplies in the kitchen cabinet, math box on the hallway bookcase, books everywhere. I wouldn't enjoy using a school room that felt cut off from the rest of the house, but it sure would be nice to have a place to put stuff, even if it were just a closet.

[Beach Mom]

We had a nice school room with a large white board, nice desks, lots of room to hang posters etc., but we still like the kitchen better. In the end, we converted the school room back to a play room and happily school in the kitchen/great room.

 

I love the kitchen table interaction. It is, at times, a little chaotic and noisy, but I love the laughing and sometimes foolishness and the family feeling of it. It is easier for me to integrate school as part of our life when it is happening in the area we live - to me in a special room it felt like too much like "going to school".

 

My kids do end up on the couch, the deck, the outside table, or in the dining room sometimes, but the kitchen table is still our central area. What helps is that we have an office/library with lots of storage so the school materials can be put away each day.

 

I find the kitchen table interaction takes the hard edge off of serious academics and injects some fun even when we are tackling tough material. It doesn't work for every family, but it works for us.

 

The only thing I missed was access to the large white board, but we recently discovered that white board markers work great on the sliding glass door and windows in the bay right behind our kitchen table. This has made me very happy as now I can use my colorful markers again :001_smile:.

[Daisy]

I don't want a school room. I want a LIBRARY. LOL. It would be nice to have all 3,000+ books in ONE room instead of spread around the house.

[bamdavis3]

You are not alone. Sometimes I think I want a formal school room with charts, etc... But we don't have enough space in our home to do that. And, I don't want to use one of the rooms that we have to look like a school room all the time.

 

What we have instead in our loft is an "edu-tainment" room! We have cabinets that slide open/closed that allow you to see the books during the day time... and when we aren't doing school we slide the cabinet shut which reveals the TV and video games for our relaxation/entertainment time. There is a small desk in there, and a let out couch which is used for reading during the day, and tv at night. It can also be used for guests to sleep.

[johnandtinagilbert]

We've gone both ways. As they get older, they spread apart and we didn't want a school room.

 

Now that I really have 2 "schools" The Elders stay in the house and we have converted part of our garage into a school house for the Little League. Most importantly, this offers a quiet house for the older kids and also gives the little people lots of space, a neat looking area, and the structured environment that will help them learn order and independence the same way it worked for their elder sibs. So as they grow up, they can eventually do school in their bedrooms or the couch or the roof....yes, the roof. DS likes to tan his amazing teen abs :) Oh, to be young again!

[johnandtinagilbert]

I don't want a school room. I want a LIBRARY. LOL. It would be nice to have all 3,000+ books in ONE room instead of spread around the house.

That was our road, too. I started with a library last year, then when I converted the garage, I put all the books in one place. It is pretty satisfying to teach in the same room as all those books!

[kalliemorgan]

I would love to be in my kitchen/dining room instead where there is a ton of natural light. But I couldn't handle the mess that was constantly a result of it! Thus we are in the "daylight" basement of our house in our "school room." I may go nuts this winter and knock a hole in the wall to the outside world just for more light, however. :tongue_smilie:

[nmoira]

I don't want a dedicated schoolroom, but I'd love a big library with overstuffed chairs and an old fashioned library table. I have the books to fill it... :tongue_smilie:

[Mommee & Baba]

You are NOT alone.

 

We converted our dining room into a school room. I loved it! The kids loved it but found that we RARELY did school there as we were just finding ourselves on the kitchen table while I multi-tasked with folding laundry, washing dishes and teaching a lesson.

 

I didn't realize how much I like NOT having a school room until recently. We had to pack up the room and convert it into a SIMPLE office area. I packed all the school items away that we aren't using right now. I love that we have a huge shelving/drawer unit and now that I see how open our home is without the "chaos" of a school room I won't be having a school room when we move. I will put out what fits in our school shelving/drawer unit and what doesn't fit goes in a tub/box in a closet!

[Woodhaven]

:) Well, I don't feel that I NEED a school room, and in fact don't have one. But I used to have one and it was nice simply because I kept all of our school supplies and books and such in that room. It was easy. We didn't do all of our work in there, but the workbooks usually stayed in there. That's no more.

 

We do have our own library where we keep most of our curriculum and books. Unfortunately, our note books, math workbooks, Language Arts books and other stuff such as pencils and markers and more are all in our kitchen. Not ideal.

 

We do much of the work that demands my presence in the kitchen. Most of our reading takes place in the living room or library. That leaves a mess in my kitchen. It is a lot of bother to put everything back at the end of the day, and take it out again in the morning, so it stays on our island neatly stacked, waiting for the next day.

[keyjoh62080]

I will put out what fits in our school shelving/drawer unit and what doesn't fit goes in a tub/box in a closet!

:iagree:

 

Same here. It was driving me crazy seeing everything out. So I just keep the curriculum on the top book shelves and put everything else in totes. I love my home feeling like home and not school. I kind of like being able to separate the two.

 

Not only do I homeschool my 2 children but I work full time from home :001_huh:.

 

Busy, busy, busy. Some days I wonder how I even get by.

 

I love seeing how we are all so different and still getting the task at hand done.

[Koerarmoca]

love ours because its just through an archway from our living room, and another doorway into the dinning room kitchen so I can be where I need to be and still have eyes on the kids and able to help.

[Snowfall]

I don't get the feeling most families with schoolrooms "just" school in the schoolroom. We don't. :D Having a schoolroom just means having a space to organize school related stuff, shelves/drawers for the kiddos (no longer in my office) to get/put their materials and some comfy/quiet workspace(s) to use, esp when I'm working with a sibling in a different room. :)

 

Yup. We have a school room because that means we don't have to hang the white board or our giant maps in the kitchen, not because we like to sit in there to do our work. We do some of it in there, but definitely not all of it. Some days we don't do any of it in there. Still, I like everything organized and I prefer my kitchen and dining room walls decorated with things other than maps placed chest high. :lol: We're moving soon, though, and probably won't have a school room, so I can live with the chest high maps in the kitchen if I need to.

[Jayne J]

Yup. We have a school room because that means we don't have to hang the white board or our giant maps in the kitchen, not because we like to sit in there to do our work. We do some of it in there, but definitely not all of it. Some days we don't do any of it in there. Still, I like everything organized and I prefer my kitchen and dining room walls decorated with things other than maps placed chest high. :lol: We're moving soon, though, and probably won't have a school room, so I can live with the chest high maps in the kitchen if I need to.

 

 

:iagree:I really don't like the visual clutter of white boards, alphabet strips and posters on the walls (we do it, but it drives me bonkers.) I've been considering finding some really goregeous fabric to make into a wall wide "curtain", hung on wire at the ceiling level to cover up all the visual distraction after school hours are over and let my dining room be a dining room.

[Finnella]

If I had my way, I might want a school room. It's just as well that we don't have the space because my DS would hate being that limited. He enjoys moving around between the table, the sofa (with a lap board), to the computer.

 

Now a library with comfy seating and a big closet for storage would be something all of our family would love. One can dream.

[Donna T.]

Am I the only one like this? LOL!

 

 

 

I am the same way. We have a room that has become known as the "book room". It is really just a home library, mostly containing materials that we aren't currently using and other odds and ends. We have been homeschooling for six years and we have done a total of two weeks of school in that room!! I much prefer using the kitchen and living room.

[Greenmama2]

No interest in a school room here, but...

 

I would love to have a big library. The one in 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks' would do, or the one in 'My Fair Lady'....

 

I don't think I can add either on to my ranch-style house though.

 

We use the dining room (as well as the lounge) and to be honest I don't mind at all that it looks like a messy kindergarten classroom with a dining table in the middle but my, oh my...I would LOVE a library room. Sigh. We have enough books and musical scores to fill one already but I'm sure I could add a whole extra room of HS materials if given half a chance.

[nov05mama]

I would just have liked a big ol' closet to put stuff in. I didn't really want a whole 'nother room, either.

 

:iagree: I would *LOVE* to have a nice huge closet type room or library where I could organize everything. That's sorta what we have going on now. I had the dining room converted to a 'school room', but now it's where I store everything on shelves and we do school at the dining room table or in the living room :)

[Joyofsixreboot]

Nope. It would totally not be our style. Many days we do trampoline schooling.:lol:

[pfamilygal]

We have an open floor plan, so our school room is part of the kitchen/breakfast area and leads into the dining room. Most of our life happens in here.

[Homemama2]

 

We have a school room, but we don't always use it. I love having it. It is a great place to organize everything, store everything, have a "kid" size table for writing projects and handwriting practice. However, often we "do school" at the kitchen table

 

:iagree: This is us. I love having the school room...but I like doing school at the kitchen table and on the couch. But making a 'school room' helped organize everything so much. Now if we have some huge messy project going on, I can simply shut the door and the rest of the house still looks nice. ;)

[missiemick]

My oldest has begged me to not get a homeschool room. She loves doing her lessons on the couch, at her deck, laying across my bed . . .

[kemilie]

I have a room (the formal dining room! LOL) where everything gets thrown and I go look at it all.... :-) Is that a school room?

 

I like the idea, philosophically, that school is done anywhere in the house. That you don't drag the kids into a specific room and call some learning "school"! That they know learning is something fun and it happens everywhere. But I also like the idea of an organized space that's more conducive to learning and is setup to simplify learning time.

 

I guess I don't know what I want?!

[Lovemyblessings]

You are not alone. We had a schoolroom once and never used it. We feel comfortable in the dining room- more like a family. Mom (me) can tinker in the kitchen and see kids at the table. I suppose it's convenient that our dining room is fully visible from the kitchen, living room, and laundry room. Which is where, let's face it, I spend so much time.

[coralloyd]

We have a school room, but it has big double doors that open to the kitchen/great room. We do all our schooling in there. I spend a LOT of time there, even if we are not doing school. There is a nice comfy couch and lots of natural light. Surrounded by books is where I feel at home and most comfy, so you will always find me in there. However, I would not spend as much time in there if it was excluded from the rest of the house.

[Momof3littles]

I don't get the feeling most families with schoolrooms "just" school in the schoolroom. We don't. :D Having a schoolroom just means having a space to organize school related stuff, shelves/drawers for the kiddos (no longer in my office) to get/put their materials and some comfy/quiet workspace(s) to use, esp when I'm working with a sibling in a different room. :)

:iagree:

[Coffeemama]

I would love to be in my kitchen/dining room instead where there is a ton of natural light. But I couldn't handle the mess that was constantly a result of it! Thus we are in the "daylight" basement of our house in our "school room." I may go nuts this winter and knock a hole in the wall to the outside world just for more light, however. :tongue_smilie:

 

Our schoolroom is in the basement too and it kills me to go very long without daylight, so we end up doing most of our work in the kitchen...AAS is one of the few subjects that has to be done down there b/c of the giant whiteboard with letters. It's screwed to the wall so I can't move it.:glare:

[momto2Cs]

I'm very happy with our current setup. We have a big dining room table, an old dresser re-purposed for arts and crafts supplies, a low bookshelf for homeschooling materials, and then there's the family room, with the couch, the chair-and-a-half (great for cuddling up for read alouds!), floor-to-ceiling bookcases on one wall, and the computers. Oh, and the TV. We also homeschool in the car, on the beds, on the floor, out back on the patio... wherever we feel best at the moment. I bought the kids clipboards too after realizing their penchant for floor/couch schooling. I also like the fact that I can see them while working in the kitchen, or from the family room, or I can hang out in the dining room and see them in the family room. We like our living room too because there is no TV in there, just comfy chairs, more bookcases, the piano, etc. A great room to read in quietly!

 

I used to want a school room, but realized that would just be, for me, one more room to keep organized and tidy. This way, cleaning up school stuff is just a part of regular housework!