School rooms/areas?

[HomesteadMommy]

I've been trying to carve out spaces in our home for learning areas. Unfortunately we don't have one room we can turn into a learning room. We do a little in the kitchen and a little in the living room.

I would LOVE to hear/see how you have your learning areas set up. Especially if your tight on space.

[LNC]

This is our supposedy "formal" living & dining rooms off of the front entry of our home. We call the 2nd room our music/reading room.

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/Jlhutch6/HomeschoolRoom

[Ellie]

Our kitchen table was our "learning area." When you have a 900 sq. ft. house, you don't have much choice :-)

 

Actually, I considered the whole house to be a learning area; the kitchen table was just where things were done that required a flat surface.

[Ferdie]

This is our supposedy "formal" living & dining rooms off of the front entry of our home. We call the 2nd room our music/reading room.

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/Jlhutch6/HomeschoolRoom

 

Love these pictures! Thanks for posting. What a warm and cozy home you have.

[PeterPan]

Giving you a little bump here so others can answer... I've had a school room for 4 years now, and while we'll still have it, I'm planning things to be a bit different with the baby coming this fall. It sounds like your arrangement works for you too. Some things need to be done at a table to ensure good posture, proper writing habits (for the ages of your dc) and efficiency. Other things like read alouds can be done on the couch. So your plan seems good to me. You just want to find ways to store things and keep things put away when not in use, some in your work space and some maybe in a bedroom closet, the basement, or tucked somewhere. People seem to get so creative, I'm sure you'll find some things that work for you. For us, I'm keeping everything in the school room in the basement except a small rolling file tote with her workbooks and notebooks stood vertically and a couple basic things on the table (cupholder for pencils, etc.). That way I don't have school stuff everywhere.

[HomesteadMommy]

Our houses about 1000 sq. ft and has NO storage room. Really their are only two closets in the whole house. The one in our room it's tiny and the one in the kids room, the other bedroom doesn't have one and there is nothing downstairs.

Right now I keep art and craft stuff in a tote bin with drawers and the currently used books in holders on a small shelf by the kitchen table. In the living room we have two large book cases for all the other books.

One of my problems finding ways to keep large items (maps etc.) in site and reach of the kids. We don't have a ton of wall space and most of it is to high for them to be really usefull....:001_huh:

I know by the time I get it just "right" we'll be ready to move! :lol:

[Kris]

I had grand plans for a room just for school, but that was never really feasible. Then I decided we'd try to keep everything in one place -- like the kitchen table -- but that didn't work, either.

 

Our school area is pretty much the whole house -- well, probably not the bathtub. ;-)

[mommylawyer]

The previous owners of our home converted the carport into a sunroom - and that is where we do school. Although, we branch out and do history at the dining room table (I read while the kids eat breakfast) and we all cuddle up on the sofa in the living room or in my bed when I read to them or when dd1 reads to everyone else.

[Once]

We have a school room for storage downstairs in the basement with egress windows. We do most of our school at the kitchen table but the maps and books are downstairs. We have a TV in our living room which is where we watch MUS DVD's and educational videos. So our whole house is a learning space.

[Ferdie]

Our houses about 1000 sq. ft and has NO storage room. Really their are only two closets in the whole house. The one in our room it's tiny and the one in the kids room, the other bedroom doesn't have one and there is nothing downstairs.

Right now I keep art and craft stuff in a tote bin with drawers and the currently used books in holders on a small shelf by the kitchen table. In the living room we have two large book cases for all the other books.

One of my problems finding ways to keep large items (maps etc.) in site and reach of the kids. We don't have a ton of wall space and most of it is to high for them to be really usefull....:001_huh:

I know by the time I get it just "right" we'll be ready to move! :lol:

 

Kim, I had the same issue in our previous home. Someone on this board suggested keeping a map on top of the dining table covered with a clear plastic table cloth. You can buy clear plastic in the fabric section of Walmart and cut it to fit your table. It work great for us and made for fun dinner conversations.

[umarider]

When we moved to yet another small, old, Base house last year I insisted on getting 2 of those big, white, pantry-type cabinets w/ doors. They fit on one wall of our "diningroom with enough space between for some shelves to hold binders, etc. (had the shelves custom cut at lumber yard to fit space, then painted them white to match cabinets). One cabinet holds all school stuff once I modified w/ some shelves (again, done w/ cut lumber), etc. The other cabinet holds all the craft-type stuff that we love so much!

 

Gotta love City Mill, which is a hardware/home store here in Hawaii! The employees are great! I tell them what I'm trying to accomplish and the dimensions of the space, and they help me choose the wood & cut it to give me the most bang for my $.

 

Learning charts/posters and dry erase boards are mounted on the doors of the cabinets.

 

By investing in the cabinets, I was able to make a "school space" that is accessible to the dining table, but neat and tidy when we aren't using it.

[sweetbaby]

Ours is on our blog under the topic, our school room. We have limited space also so we make the best of it. :D

[Trivium Academy]

In our last home we used our formal living room as our learning room, in our new home I've put the kids in one bedroom and used the 3rd bedroom as our learning room. I hope to post pictures soon. We will probably be doing our snuggle times in our living room on the couch but the learning room will be our place for the bulk of our day and a place for the kids to stretch out and do what they wish- art projects, games, etc.

 

Putting the kids in 1 room was a very hard decision but it's worked out.

[Jenny in Atl]

This was our main school area in our old house. It was a tiny 1200 tree house like structure. We used the big room (family room), kitchen, and screened porch for all our work. But the kitchen was the main area.

 

[HFClassicalAcademy]

We converted our dining room into our school room. It is adjacent to the kitchen and the kids are in there ALL THE TIME!

 

Here is the link to our school room.

 

http://hfclassicalacademy.blogspot.com/2008/01/our-schoolroom.html

 

Liz

[wagnfun]

We converted our dining room into our school room. It is adjacent to the kitchen and the kids are in there ALL THE TIME!

 

Here is the link to our school room.

 

http://hfclassicalacademy.blogspot.com/2008/01/our-schoolroom.html

 

Liz

 

Hi Liz!

 

Thanks for sharing your room! I love the color of your walls! Can you please tell me more about your "centers" and what you have in there? Thanks!

[Ann@thebeach]

I know this is an older thread-this board goes so fast! But I finally got pics to show off ;)

OK, this certainly is not for a small space but we were lucky enough to buy a house with a dedicated craft room-it's a dream come true for a homeschooler! I'm in heaven!

These are clickable to see larger:

 

 

This pic has my pegboard on the wall with the little organizer hooks/holders-I love this! It's great to keep things up and away from the toddler.

 

[Sarah CB]

We now have a dedicated school room, but in our old house it was our family room, play room, exercise room and school room. Here are some pics:

 

 

This is taken from the school area looking at the rest of the room.

 

 

That's what the school area looked like.

 

 

That's the doorway.