This week’s blog question from the TOS Blog Cruise is “How do you organize your space or homeschool room?”.
There have been a variety of ways that we’ve used to organize our school materials over the years. Since we began homeschooling over 5 years ago, we have lived in 3…yes 3 different homes, and that’s just during the school year.
Our first year, we had a playroom/schoolroom, and it was nice having all of our materials in once place. We painted part of one wall with chalkboard paint, and used that for demonstrating math problems and other copy work. We had bookshelves, and the children each had their own school desks to keep their materials in. There was a sofa and recliner in our playroom that we would use to cuddle on while reading and having read aloud time. We had educational posters on the walls, and a number line all around the molding. It was nice and organized having all of our materials in one room, that we could clean up, and walk away from at the end of the school day, as it was downstairs in our split-level home. The rest of the time, the kids used the other part of the room as a place to store their toys and play.
The second home we lived in, there wasn’t an extra room for a schoolroom, so we tended to have school all over the place. Eventually, we added on, and we were able to move most of the school materials into the extra room, and get our living room back. School was done at the kitchen table, which was never a problem, until lunchtime when we had to stack it all up somewhere till lunch was over. It tended to be a bit more messy than when we had our schoolroom in the previous house. But, at the end of the day, all of the books and supplies were put away. I kept one large cabinet in the kitchen for math manipulatives, art supplies, paper, pencils, and anything we needed regularly. Our maps hung on the walls of our laundry room which was adjacent to the kitchen and living room. The kids each had a desk in their bedroom, and could go there to do their schoolwork if they wanted to be alone or to be in a more quiet environment. Usually, we’d read on the couch, or sometimes the kids would just go lay on their beds and read.
Learning at the kitchen table together.
In our current home, we do things similarly to the way we did in our last home. Except, now we have a dining room in between our kitchen and living room, so we do most of our seatwork at the dining room table instead of at the kitchen table. This has made it much easier for snack and lunchtime, as now there’s no need to clean up all of the books before we eat. They use mini-offices as dividers or as an easy to store reference when doing math or language arts.
Learning in the dining room together.
Using a mini-office.
Most of the kids’ materials are in their workboxes. I even have my own workbox just like theirs filled with file folders or worksheets and activities for the kids, as well as all of my teacher's guide, and anything that I use regularly. They stack on top of each other, which is nice at the end of the day. Also, on Fridays, I move them to our school closet so that they are out of sight, and I have my formal dining room back, at least for the weekend.
Stackable workboxes that “work” well for us.
In the bottom cabinets of my dining room hutch, I keep books, boxes of file folders for lapbooking, dictionaries, binders, and whatever else we use fairly regularly. In one of the cabinets is a drawer with 3 dividers, where we store our pencils, scissors, glue runners, etc.
We recently purchased some bookshelves and will be putting our books that are still unpacked in boxes on them soon. For now, they serve as a nice charging station for the laptops, and storing more school supplies. One of the bookshelves has doors on it that close nicely, for a neater appearance. I also have a few plastic drawer containers that can hold supplies, as well as a basket for educational games and activities. These are kept in our school closet.
We also have my daughter’s large art easel in our dining room corner, which has a whiteboard on one side, that I will use for demonstration or copywork. I also have a large magnetic board that we use to store our
All About Spelling Tiles. This goes on top of our hutch out of sight when not in use.
We still use the kitchen table, for working one on one, and science experiments. I’ve also used it to set up educational centers, like this one, that the kids can “visit” during their school day.
Science center at the kitchen table.
Working one on one with my youngest daughter.
We use our living room for read alouds and we have a nice big cozy chair for reading alone too, with a reading lamp overhead.
Reading in the big comfy chair.
Sometimes the kids, especially my oldest, will take their workboxes to their rooms to be alone and have some quiet while working independently.
I also have a nice cabinet desk in my bedroom where a computer is. It is an armoire computer cabinet, so it closes nicely and neatly when not in use.
I think by now, you've realized that I like things neat and organized. Even though we don’t have a schoolroom and we have a lot of materials, they are not scattered everywhere. Everything has a place. Anyone who stops by during the week can tell that we are homeschoolers by the things that we have around, the bookshelves, the globe, the workboxes, books here and there. But by the weekend, most of these things are put out of sight, or at least cleaned up and stored neatly. I have a nice size closet right off the kitchen, where I store as many school supplies as it will hold. On the weekend most of the materials go into the closet out of sight.
As you can see, school takes place all over the house. When the weather is nice, we’ll even take it outside. I’ve also told the kids we’ll take a nice day or two towards the end of the school year, pack up our books and head to the beach for a day of beach-schooling. We may even end up at the park with our schoolbooks. It’s nice to take school out of the home and especially enjoy the nice weather when the opportunity arrives.
Recording weather observations.
Reading outside on the swing set enjoying the sunny weather.
Releasing butterflies from our butterfly habitat.
“Mining for gold” while learning about The Gold Rush.
Yes, my kids are in their pajamas. We do school in pajamas a lot around here. Learning can happen anytime, even in our PJs. Homeschooling isn't just about school, it's our lifestyle too.
One of the benefits of schooling all over the house, and even outdoors, which we enjoy greatly, is that my kids are learning that school can take place anytime and anywhere, which means that they can learn in any environment, in the car, at the library, outside on a sunny day, while visiting family, wherever we may happen to be.
I’d love for you to share with me in the comments section what YOU do to stay organized. I always love hearing new ideas from other homeschoolers. Do you have a schoolroom? Or are you like us, schooling anywhere and everywhere? Do you have any tips for keeping it all organized?
To read more views from my crewmates on this week’s TOS Blog Cruise Question, as well as previous weeks' questions, please click on the button at the top of this post!
Be sure to check back next week when my crewmates and I answer the question, “How do you find time for everything? (homeschool, housework, time alone, etc.)”
**All original photos and text belong to The Homeschool Desk**
