Low cost ideas to better homeschooling without a designated school room

[lorisuewho]

Honestly, I do not wish to have a designated school room. I like schooling where the main action is taking place with the toddlers and near/in the kitchen and near the laundry, etc.

 

I have been mostly homeschooling in the dining room, but it is starting to LOOK like a school room. I'm always striving for a calm and peaceful home, minimizing the chaos. I'd like to get my dining room back to functioning also as a dining room. I don't need it to be a secret we homeschool. . .I just don't want my house to scream, "LOOK HERE! WE HOMESCHOOL!" Does that make sense to anyone?

 

However, I'm not looking to remodel or buy furniture.

 

Do you have any tips on little things that you did to make your home co-function for homeschooling and being a soothing home? I tried to search on pinterest, but it seemed like anything I saw was expensive or like I'd have to have an interior decorating degree to pull it off.

[PachiSusan]

I only have one child so it's pretty easy to hide it. I have a 4 cubby hole organizer that I put all her books and materials in after we are done.

[Mystie]

We school in the main living areas, too. I don't hang timeline stuff. I have a bookshelf where the bottom two shelves are binders and I have a second-hand kitchen cart on wheels that holds our file boxes with papers and books, our math blocks, and that sort of thing. It usually sits out, but I can move it into the coat closet if I want it to be out of sight.

[RocCityMom]

We have a world map hanging in our family room, but beyond that, I have a shelving unit in the closet in which we keep our book and on which we keep our supplies (paper, art supplies, pencils, scissors, and whatnot). Each day, I fill a small basket with the books/manipulatives we need and we just travel with that basket wherever we need to be -- in the living room in the early afternoon because there's wonderful light, at the kitchen table as we have snack or to do art projects, to the dining room for lessons and tea, or outdoors for lessons on a blanket on the lawn. We also do have a small easel with a whiteboard on it that kind of migrates depending on where we need it. But otherwise, our house doesn't scream, "We homeschool!"

 

 

[Hunter]

Boxed/correspondence curricula and unschooling make less of a schoolroom look. It's the "best" curricula that make such a schooly look. You know the kind of stuff everyone feels guilty that they are NOT doing when they look at blogs? :laugh: Skip the "best" and stop reading blogs and suddenly the house looks like a house again.

[Lara in Colo]

honestly, I have always wanted to have a set of the closet doors that are on a track in the ceiling so I could hide all the stuff behind it--- I could put it all around the room or just on one wall. Behind it would be the shelves and wall hangings and then boom, closed doors and a wooden wall is all you see.

[TraceyS/FL]

We just moved into the alcove off our living room. I know I'm lucky to have this space - it is in the main action of the house (we had been back in the former garage years in the past), and I feel that is the best spot for this stage in our life. I can leave the room and still easily see if she goes off task!

 

It looks like we have a lot of books (two IKEA Billy's and 1 5x5 Expedit on the walls) and this really cool project table :D I'm still trying to sort out the white boards and a few other things (so I'm trying to gather ideas too), our timeline is in the hallway off the room we are in.

 

I would start with a list of what bugs you the most - I really don't like X being visible, and so what is a solution for that. Then the next thing.

 

I like the idea of using display boards for stuff to be able to have it up - then take it away and stash it over the weekend. We don't have a map at the moment (but a whole cubby full of various atlases), but I think we are going to do a vintage looking map in the living room for decor anyway. To be honest, I've never had a good spot for hanging things on the walls.

 

There are a couple of threads that have pictures of non-schoolroom schooling, I managed to find some when I was searching to sort out my own space/sanity issues.

[happymomofboys]

I don't have a school room and I don't hang anything for school on the walls. Our maps are foldable and slide into the bookshelf when we're not using them. Our timeline is in book form. There is no hiding the fact that we homeschool though, because our house is FULL of books. Way more than anyone we know would ever dream of having. Our office looks like a small library and we've got another 3 bookcases in the living room and 2 in the dining room. Each of us has a bookcase in our bedroom as well. I happen to love books and feel cozy when surrounded by them, but I could see how someone with more minimalist taste would find it cluttered and chaotic.

[Farrar]

One thing that has worked for us that I did not long ago was get a long, niceish looking rectangle basket and put all the pen and pencil and scissors cups in it. It looks decent when it's out in the middle of the dining room table and it's easy to put all of it aside as well. Before, we had a lot of individual bins of pencils and markers and so forth and they kept getting taken out and put back and taken out and left out, and put back and so forth. This is a bit more streamlined.

[kdownie]

We school in the dining room, but ALL books/supplies/everything are kept in either my laundry room on shelves or in dd's room on shelves. If you came to my house during non-school hours, you wouldn't know we homeschool. I love being able for it to be all out of sight the rest of the day and evening.

[Alte Veste Academy]

My schoolroom is the formal living/dining room area at the front of the house. The dining room has a table and a buffet flanked by two bookshelves with doors on bottom. We do not ever eat in here, but it looks like we could. The living room side has a sectional, small tv stand, storage armoire and a 2x4 Expedit cubby. My rule is that my homeschool has to look more like a home than a school. I store almost everything in baskets. I personally find natural materials very relaxing. When I buy something, it has to be useful and lovely. The decor in that living room revolves around a couple of 1930's quilts, so the rug in the schoolroom coordinates with that, as do the the decorative tin bins that I keep out. When I bought a map and other wall decor, I made sure it matched the decor of that room. Nerdy Baby had some really awesome watercolor prints in the same tones in the room. I even found a watercolor periodic table! I have the kids markers, pencils, colored pencils, pens, etc. sorted into canning jars in an old divided milk crate. Very quaint, totally matches the room and my sense of whimsy. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/tongue_smilie.gif Anyway, I do not want my room to look like a schoolroom. I want it to look like home, so I keep home in mind whenever I buy anything for school. (And if it's even just kinda sorta homely, it goes in the armoire. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/biggrin.gif)

[PachiSusan]

My schoolroom is the formal living/dining room area at the front of the house. The dining room has a table and a buffet flanked by two bookshelves with doors on bottom. We do not ever eat in here, but it looks like we could. The living room side has a sectional, small tv stand, storage armoire and a 4x8 Expedit cubby. My rule is that my homeschool has to look more like a home than a school. I store almost everything in baskets. I personally find natural materials very relaxing. When I buy something, it has to be useful and lovely. The decor in that living room revolves around a couple of 1930's quilts, so the rug in the schoolroom coordinates with that, as do the the decorative tin bins that I keep out. When I bought a map and other wall decor, I made sure it matched the decor of that room. Nerdy Baby had some really awesome watercolor prints in the same tones in the room. I even found a watercolor periodic table! I have the kids markers, pencils, colored pencils, pens, etc. sorted into canning jars in an old divided milk crate. Very quaint, totally matches the room and my sense of whimsy. :tongue_smilie: Anyway, I do not want my room to look like a schoolroom. I want it to look like home, so I keep home in mind whenever I buy anything for school. (And if it's even just kinda sorta homely, it goes in the armoire. :D)

 

 

I need to see a picture of this. It sounds lovely!!!! :D

[Stellalarella]

 

We got an old entertainment center on the cheap from Craigslist...then my husband retrofitted shelves into it from an old shelving unit. Because it is deep, I can put awkward school stuff in it. I love the fact that I can shut the doors.

 

We don't have a school room, either. And I don't think the kids would use it for...school...if we did. :)

[violamama]

Not only do we not have a schoolroom, we are bursting at the seams of our townhouse. I've whinged about it on here before...

 

Here are some things we did to make it work without looking like a school closet. You said you didn't want to buy anything, but maybe you have something like these pieces you could repurpose.

 

1. For Christmas 4 years ago I searched high and low for a sideboard for our living room on Craigslist. It's an antique and I got it for about $300. It holds all our toy type things: board games, puzzles, matchbook cars, zoobs, snap circuits, kid-computers, capes, light sabers. I bought a bunch of metal bins (probably intended to be dust bins) from the dollar section at Target and made picture-tags with the names of toys they hold. This way the kids have no excuse for leaving their stuff out. It closes up and looks beautiful with a globe and a couple of cacti on top. We have some slim attache-style art supply sets that slide underneath.

 

2. I did bite the bullet and get a couple of schoolish storage things. I have a 10-drawer white Trofast from Ikea and the drawers are the same bright green as part of our living room. (You can see the crazy bright wall color in my pic.) It was going to be a workboxes unit, but that system overwhelmed me. Instead I have art supplies in the bottom shelves and the boys know how to get & replace those themselves. Each kid has a box for any art or drawings, and I store papers for our memory work there, too. It also has a cactus- well, a succulent- on top. Plants really help things look "done" in terms of minimal decorating & warmth. We have a cheap white closetmaid 6-cubby storage shelf sort of hidden back in the corner next to our oversized dining room table. The bottom 4 each have a fabric basket (same green as the walls and the other bins). The top two hold our daily books and small metal matching mini-bins for pencils, scissors, glue sticks. We found a tape dispenser that looks like a slug in the same color.

To be honest, I would rather NOT have that stuff in our living room, but we did need more room for papers and books and stuff. I wanted no excuse for piles of papers or pencils anywhere. With the uniformity of color and almost no "clutter" anywhere, it's live-able.

 

3. I got a cool-looking cheap "leaning ladder" style bookshelf at Target. We fill it with matched sets on the eye-level shelves and jumbled bunches of whatever books in the bottom. The very top shelf has a large framed hand-drawn portrait of my younger son on it. Paintings/drawings and plants (just a few of each per room) really make it come together IMHO.

 

4. Our TV sits on a low wide table with 3 drawers and 3 wide short cubbies. We put a LOT of next years' curriculum in there, and keep all DVDs hidden away. Our coffee table is an old cheap one with a shelf in the bottom also. We've got big natural fiber baskets there which come in handy when somebody might be on the way and I just need to dump the surfaces off into something to sort later. If I ran out of space again, I'd look into those under-bed bins to put beneath the couches. I'd also buy some bins for under our bench in the living room.

 

5. For our CC stuff, we use a trifold board. It fits TONS of printed 8.5 x 11s and our timeline/science cards. You could easily do something like this with anything you need visuals for. It slides beside the sideboard when we're not using it.

 

6. All our dry erase space is on little 8.5 x 11 hand-held boards. Maybe when we get into differential calculus we'll want more room for a real board, but so far so good. We use the little ones every day for math and spelling/phonics. I think I got them at the dollar store.

 

7. We have a huge picture frame painted silver and criss-crossed with twine hanging on the door to our garage. I put the boys' latest best work and art projects there with clothespins.

 

In general, to avoid school-mess-vibe, I am pretty tough on clutter. The kids know where everything "goes" and there are very few things you can see out in the open. Sometimes we have science and art stuff out longer, but if I want to clear all that then I can do it in about 10 minutes. You can do a lot with cheap bookshelves, little tension-curtain rods, a fabric you like and a couple of plants. Throw in something you collect (for me it's blue glass insulators, vintage cameras and globes) displayed in a tidy way and you're good to go.

[happypamama]

I keep the majority of the art supplies in a cabinet (one of those wooden jelly cabinets), and I keep books that we're not currently using in an upstairs room. My dad built me some pretty painted crates that hold our current books and files. I use workboxes for the various subjects, so the kids can easily tote them to wherever they need -- the living room, their bedrooms, the kitchen table if I'm in there. . . For the often-needed supplies (pencils/crayons, pens, scissors, gluestick, erasers), each child has a plastic box that can be toted around easily, so it's less stuff left around (and I know whose it is if it is left out as well, and it's easy to pack the stuff up for co-op or days when we're schooling out of the house). We technically have a schoolroom, but that's mainly just to hold the art cabinet and my computer desk full o'books and papers; having a designated center for all the stuff keeps it from getting lost. I did make that room my baby/toddler-safe room (ie it's a no Lego zone, and we try to keep shoes out of it too), and my rocking chair is in there too, so we *can* do schoolwork in there and have room for the littles to play, but especially these days, we don't end up using it a lot. (Now, when DS3 was a newborn and then a playing/crawling baby, we did use the schoolroom a lot more, and we were all together; I'm sure that will happen again when the new baby gets here, with older kids taking off for quiet spaces when they need to.)

 

Could you put some pretty curtains over some shelves or something, just to give a more uniform look to your dining room storage space?

[Homemama2]

We have a school room now, but didn't for the first 4 yrs. I had a kitchen cupboard that I kept school stuff in including odd shaped things and binders, a bookshelf in the living room for school books, and then kept the space under the entertainment center for two rubbermaid tubs (one for math manipulatives, one for other manipulatives.) My kitchen and living rooms are next to each other so it was convenient. It was easier when I was only schooling one and they were little. :) I also condensed ALOT and used the library a ton. I have so much junk now it's spilling into other rooms even though we have a school room. :glare:

 

I also had our timeline in a binder, not on the wall. And our maps were all ones that I could fold up and I stuck them away too. We didn't have anything on the walls (per hubby's request.)

[VeritasMama]

We do schoolwork at the kitchen table, the kitchen is connected to the family room so the little ones can play while we work. I am lucky to have some built ins with cupboard doors in the family room where I keep the manipulatives, puzzles, art and science supplies, etc.

We use rolling cart drawers for workboxes. This picture shows a set from Amazon, but the ones I have are black so they blend in better with the decor:

I put supplies on my bookshelves like paper, pencils, etc. in nice looking baskets I bought at Walmart and thrift stores. I also put books, papers, and other supplies in cardboard magazine boxes from ikea. At ikea they come in sets of 5 for $2.00, but if you aren't near an ikea you can order them at Amazon for about $2.00 a piece with shipping, less if you have free shipping. They are the cheapest magazine files I have found, and they have held up well.

Here is a blog post about how to decorate the Flyt boxes to make them look pretty, I just use scrapbook paper for the same effect, wrapping paper would work as well.



The biggest challenge is to force ourselves to put everything away as soon as we are done with it. Once everything has a place that is tucked away and out of sight, the clutter can be kept at bay if you take the time to put things in the right place.

[TraceyS/FL]

OH I don't have TIME to make my cheap white magazine holders so pretty.... but dang, i want them PRETTY!!!!!!! :D

[Lori D.]

2... I have a 10-drawer white Trofast from Ikea and the drawers are the same bright green as part of our living room... It also has a cactus- well, a succulent- on top. Plants really help things look "done" in terms of minimal decorating & warmth.

 

I was wondering if you could layer plain and patterned tablecloths, length of fabric remnant, scarves, etc, over the top and put the plant on top, so it looks like an intentionally decorated small plant table? Pull the cloths up for school, end of the day, put everything back, and pull the cloths back down. Presto! School vanishes from the living room like magic! ;)

 

You could even get artsy and change the fabric / tablecloths / scarves every so often to go with the season, or to add a different color splash to your living room for a really cheap and easy way of changing decor...

 

Just a thought! You've definitely done an outstanding job of "taming" school in a small space! :) Warmest regards, Lori D.

[VeritasMama]

OH I don't have TIME to make my cheap white magazine holders so pretty.... but dang, i want them PRETTY!!!!!!! :D

 

Just remind yourself that making things pretty increases your family's quality of life, the happiness and stress relief that being surrounded by beauty brings and all that. This is what I tell myself when I feel guilty about spending my limited time on a project like this when I should be folding the laundry. :tongue_smilie:

[AK_Mom4]

I keep everything corralled in one corner of the dining room in a bookshelf (deep but narrow). With storage of materials we aren't using in the guest room closet.

[kwickimom]

We use organizing totes from 31. Each of has one with our books and supplies in it and they are stored in our bedrooms. I have a pretty basket in the livingroom for books we will read soon. I have 2 shelves in the basement that hold all curriculum and books and supplies we might use in the future. No sign of homeschooling here :-)

[Mom2OandE]

Well I have a designated school room but the natural light isn't very good and we tend to migrate to the kitchen and living room. I now have a pretty basket that keeps our main books for the week in the kitchen. All other supplies are kept in the classroom. Our biggest issue is just putting everything away.

[momtoamiracle]

I bought an entertainment center off Craigslist and put it in my dining room. Holds all materials and books. I can close the doors when I'm done and it's very neat. I love it. I spent $100.

[lewelma]

Have less stuff.

 

Pencils/markers/ruler/etc fit in a pencil case

School books fit into a computer case for younger and under dh's desk for older

Novels and read alouds fit on a standard bookcase

Library books are on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.

My planning notebooks are in the file cabinet

Previous and future year's books are in the window seat

Science equipment is in an under-the-bed-box

Globe is on kid's dresser

Violins are in the corner

Art work is either framed and on the wall or stored in a large, flat portfolio case that slides behind the dresser

 

I think that a lot of homeschoolers just buy too much!

 

Ruth in NZ

[lorisuewho]

I've read all your posts. Actually I've read them all a few times now. Thank you for all the responses and ideas. I have been incubating them as I contemplate my own space and children and try to create a vision of how I want our homeschooling to look on the outside (vs. setting goals for the internal content and skills).

 

I now have 3 boxes of stuff to sell at the state homeschool convention (I do indeed have too much stuff)

I am also working on getting rid of other stuff in our basement to clear out some shelves for things not currently in use, but that I want to save.

Everyone seems to mention "pretty baskets," so I'm going through my basement and rooms trying to gather some and getting the bright primary colored plastic storage stuff out of there.

I liked the idea of putting the pencils and stuff in jars and putting the jars into one long basket that can easily be put away.

I do not have a bookcase or cabinet in our living space that can be used for this so I'm going to need to be creative here.

I'm considering painting the dining room, simply because it won't cost that much and it might make the room happier.

 

Thanks so much for all of your time to give me ideas.

[Hunter]

Have less stuff.

 

I think that a lot of homeschoolers just buy too much!

 

 

Yup! :thumbup:

[laughing lioness]

We built a library cart for library stuff (built from Ana White's site)

We use our dining room buffet for craft/art supplies (I have a 10 yo dd crafter)

The kids each have a bin with a lid

Our library is upstairs with a second desk with 2 computer stations.

Our desk is in the dining room - stores office supplies and laptop

I make liberal use of shoe storage bins.

We have a large open first floor- we do mess it up while we are schooling. We clean it up (mostly) every day-you can get an idea of it here.

[lifesadream83]

we are in a small apt while at this duty station here is what i did https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151079814158887.461257.556798886&type=3

[lorisuewho]

we are in a small apt while at this duty station here is what i did https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151079814158887.461257.556798886&type=3

 

 

Love your storage center with the map above. Very nice!

[lewelma]

And with an organ, a piano, a harp, a cello, three music stands, sometimes 4 violins, a viola, a trumpet and a bugle,

 

wow!

[Kelly1730]

My schoolroom is the formal living/dining room area at the front of the house. The dining room has a table and a buffet flanked by two bookshelves with doors on bottom. We do not ever eat in here, but it looks like we could. The living room side has a sectional, small tv stand, storage armoire and a 4x8 Expedit cubby. My rule is that my homeschool has to look more like a home than a school. I store almost everything in baskets. I personally find natural materials very relaxing. When I buy something, it has to be useful and lovely. The decor in that living room revolves around a couple of 1930's quilts, so the rug in the schoolroom coordinates with that, as do the the decorative tin bins that I keep out. When I bought a map and other wall decor, I made sure it matched the decor of that room. Nerdy Baby had some really awesome watercolor prints in the same tones in the room. I even found a watercolor periodic table! I have the kids markers, pencils, colored pencils, pens, etc. sorted into canning jars in an old divided milk crate. Very quaint, totally matches the room and my sense of whimsy. :tongue_smilie: Anyway, I do not want my room to look like a schoolroom. I want it to look like home, so I keep home in mind whenever I buy anything for school. (And if it's even just kinda sorta homely, it goes in the armoire. :D)

 

 

 

Sounds so lovely! Care to share some pics? :001_rolleyes:

[Alte Veste Academy]

I need to see a picture of this. It sounds lovely!!!! :D

 

Sounds so lovely! Care to share some pics? :001_rolleyes:

 

Sorry, guys. DH is not a fan of online sharing of pics of the house, kids, etc.

[Kelly1730]

Sorry, guys. DH is not a fan of online sharing of pics of the house, kids, etc.

 

 

 

Perfectly understandable. You did a wonderful job of describing it :001_rolleyes:

[PachiSusan]

Sorry, guys. DH is not a fan of online sharing of pics of the house, kids, etc.

 

 

Aww, I understand. :( I don't know that a room without the kids can identify you in any way. How is it a risk?

[Alte Veste Academy]

Aww, I understand. :( I don't know that a room without the kids can identify you in any way. How is it a risk?

 

It's not so much about it being a risk. It's more about being private people, really. Sometimes I wonder if what I write here crosses a line too. It's just how we're choosing to navigate online stuff. Personal choices and all that. :)

[PachiSusan]

It's not so much about it being a risk. It's more about being private people, really. Sometimes I wonder if what I write here crosses a line too. It's just how we're choosing to navigate online stuff. Personal choices and all that. :)

 

No worries. I just honestly didn't know how it was risky - it's not. You just choose not to. :)

[stripe]

Sorry, guys. DH is not a fan of online sharing of pics of the house, kids, etc.

 

Tell that nice man that we have a great idea then, that will be much more fun: you are going to be running in-person workshop/teas to discuss home organization and investigational science. Yep. I'm scared to attend conventions after all I've read on here, so....I'm coming to your house instead! :)

 

I have a room with all my books, but the seating is sub-par. I tried to set up a space in the basement but so far I haven't successfully used it. I did drag one of those little kid bookshelves, the kind that faces spines out, down there, and I like it a lot for thin-ish books or workbooks because I can find them so much easier. I wish I were using it, though. I can find everything in there! Clearly I am going to have to rework my house. Right now we do a lot in the very small kitchen, and there's just not enough room.

[Alte Veste Academy]

Tell that nice man that we have a great idea then, that will be much more fun: you are going to be running in-person workshop/teas to discuss home organization and investigational science. Yep. I'm scared to attend conventions after all I've read on here, so....I'm coming to your house instead! :)

 

I have a room with all my books, but the seating is sub-par. I tried to set up a space in the basement but so far I haven't successfully used it. I did drag one of those little kid bookshelves, the kind that faces spines out, down there, and I like it a lot for thin-ish books or workbooks because I can find them so much easier. I wish I were using it, though. I can find everything in there! Clearly I am going to have to rework my house. Right now we do a lot in the very small kitchen, and there's just not enough room.

 

 

I think it would be fun to have a WTM Momvention. :tongue_smilie: I can't seem to ever find academic conferences/conventions where I've lived, and I have no use (anymore) for just a big homeschool shopping mall experience. :lol: