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School at the kitchen table people.... please come here


mom2agang
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You walk through our front door into our living room, which then opens up through a big archway into what used to be our dining room. But we made our kitchen into an eat in kitchen instead (and school at the table there).

 

We now use that old dining room as a computer room slash den, I guess, and we store all our school stuff in there, too.

 

That room has a small closet which contains board games, science kits, our microscope, a filing cabinet where I keep paperwork, construction paper and similar supplies and other stuff like that.

 

It's got a few bookcases where I keep kids classics, science-y books, and creative writing and poetry books, how to draw and art project books, and homeschool type books for me, and on one of those bookcases I use a couple of the shelves to keep all of the kids workbooks, binders and textbooks. I keep them on the top two shelves on the bookcase closet to the kitchen so it's easy to grab what we need on our way in and put back on our way out. I'll attach a pic of that setup and bookcase.

 

In this same room is my computer desk and computer, so we come in here when we need to use the computer for something, and next to my computer desk is an old china cabinet type thing that I took over for arts and crafts type supplies...it's got paints, glues, stamps and inks, and other miscellaneous stuff like that in it.

 

So basically, anything I need for school, I'm getting from this one room and it's either on the bookcase, in the closet, or in this supply cabinet, and we just get what we need, carry it into the next room to use at the table, and then we bring it back in here when we're done.

 

The only other things in this room basically are our big saltwater aquarium and a loveseat. It worked out pretty well...a schoolroom minus the desks to actually sit down and do the work at. :D We did what we could with limited space!

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We school at the kitchen table, which is actually in the Living Room since our apartment is soooooooo small (594 sq. ft.). It was important for us to not feel like we were living in a school so we have all of our books and supplies in stackable cabinets with doors. I needed it out of sight in order to not be in "homeschool mode" all day long. We also have two large-ish bookshelves in the boys' small room and another bookshelf on one side of their large closet.

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We school at the kitchen table. My front hallway is lined with four floor to ceiling bookcases and a large file cabinet for the printer (wireless), laptops, all the school books (binders and such) that are being used for the year, and all the "living books" for all subjects. The rest are stored in floor to ceiling shelves in our master bedroom. All school supplies, laminator, cutting board, etc. are stored in a hall closet.

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I just read on Joyce Swann's blog that her kids Kept their books in a cardboard box in their closets and brought them out to the table each morning to begin school. I love this idea and plan to do it next year. We have a small cabinet with a door (i bought at RoSs for $35) that will house the manuals and rarely used books. Then each of them wil bring their box with them.

 

I really hate clutter and lots of visual junk so this will be perfect for us! To me everything should be behind a wooden door or Cabinet. :)

 

For now my dd keeps her books in her traditional style school desk, and of course that's the sole purpose of that 100.00 desk because she prefers to sit at the table. Same with my son.

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We live in a mobile home so things are tight. We do have an eat-in area in our kitchen for our table. I have a small buffet there where I keep papers and supplies. On top of the buffet I put a small two shelf bookshelf with the books. The printer sits on there too. The whiteboards slide behind the buffet. I used to have a poster with the alphabet on the wall, but I took that down now that ds knows his letters.

 

I keep the four year old's books and things in his bookbag (yeah, we do school with the four year old. He reads pretty well, but he would be a lot better at math if he could remember the names of the numbers above ten). I keep his bookbag on the floor next to the buffet.

 

A lot of dd's schoolbooks are on the kindle. We do school at the table in the morning (math, writing, ect) and migrate to the couch (reading, read alouds, ect) over time. I have a laptop that gets dragged around. During the day there is a canning jar full of pencils and markers on the table, that goes back in the buffet after school.

 

I have a small box where I put papers that I think I might be keeping for the portfolio, all other papers get tossed. I have two baskets of manipulatives and flashcards that go in the buffet. We don't have a lot of stuff....I have to be very conscious of how much 'stuff' we accumulate. We used to have a rolling cart that I kept all of our stuff on, but now that more and more of our stuff is on the kindle I didn't need the cart anymore, but it used to be useful to wheel from room to room.

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Our kitchen is open to the living room and our sofa backs to the kitchen table. We store all of our school stuff on a sofa table behind the sofa. I like this arrangement because all our school stuff is within reach but my table doesn't have any storage underneath. I've been thinking about upgrading to this sofa table:

hemnes-sofa-table__0104027_PE250675_S4.JPG

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Our kitchen is open to the living room and our sofa backs to the kitchen table. We store all of our school stuff on a sofa table behind the sofa. I like this arrangement because all our school stuff is within reach but my table doesn't have any storage underneath. I've been thinking about upgrading to this sofa table:

hemnes-sofa-table__0104027_PE250675_S4.JPG

 

I love this idea.

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We do school at table. We have a book shelf in hallway and get everything out daily and put away in afternoon. It not the ideal situation, but have no other space and probably won't ever have any more. They do have desks in their room, but they rarely use them during the day.

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This is horribly messy, but I'll give it a shot. We have one Borders bookshelf to the right of our dining table. It holds most of our daily stuffs. We have two more in the living room (open floor plan) to hold other books.

 

The one in our living room arrived with the back ripped, so I cut out a bigger slice to accommodate our circuit breaker, lol.

 

I plan to paint all 3 when the weather warms up, and I'm keeping my eyes open for more organizing tools.

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We school at the kitchen table and the living room, too...and sometimes the bedroom, and sometimes outside, and sometimes at Chick-fil-A, in the car, or wherever else we happen to be that day. Hoever, most days we are gathered around the table. Our supplies, books, notebooks and other materials are kept in a linen closet in the hallway. This seemed to work best as I like to have a place to put everything away when school is over and have my home look like a home and not a school room. I know that that is not true for everyone but it works best for us. I do have a dry erase board but I don't have it mounted. It lives in my closet when not in use as it doesn't fit in the other one. I have file cabinets in my garage that store work from previous years. And, I have a hanging file organizer on the back of my pantry door for files I need to keep handy, like attendance forms, homeschool supply lists, and other household items. That's how we do it and it seems to be working pretty well for a home that is too small for a dedicated school room.

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