School Room Week

The topic this week for Heart of the Matter's  Not Back to School Blog Hop is School Room Week.  Do you school at the kitchen table, on the family room couch, or do the kids have desks in their rooms?  Where is your favorite place in the house to do your learning?





Last year I did a very similar post, so this will all look a bit familiar if you are a regular reader. However, I decided to take new pictures, though our room hasn't changed much, simply because I just finished organizing our shelves and I'm so proud!

I've been blessed to have a designated place, a "bonus room" above the garage, for school.  In the early days of our family, this room held a Toys R Us storeful of Little Tykes, Little People, and various other hunks of plastic.  When we first started homeschooling, I simply added a table and a set of shelves amongst the plastic landfill and called it the playroom/schoolroom.  As the kids got older and my curriculum addiction overtook the Little Tykes, we decided to have the room converted to meet our homeschooling needs. 

It is a bit of an odd-shaped room, but it has the perfect place for a long desk, a corner computer area, and cubby compartments on both sides.  This is where we keep the things that we use the most. 

The computer area is where my daughter often sits, either taking online classes or doing work on the computer.  The cubbies on this side hold mostly reference materials and computer programs. I often sit with my son at the long desk. In the cubbies over the long desk, I have magazine holders that hold the materials for one subject each for each child.  This is something I started once I was introduced to workboxes. It has ended up being more an organizational system than a workbox system, but is something that has made our day flow so much better.  I just go through the boxes each evening and make sure I have the needed materials for the next day.  Many times it is the same items, but I'll often place supplemental materials or perhaps a game into the box. If we aren't doing a subject that day, I just turn the box around to the closed side.  We also turn each box around as it is completed.  My "big" addition this year is to add labels to each box.  I don't know why that is so exciting, but it is! It makes me feel more organized.

In the below picture, the green unit next to the desk contains more computer programs and audio materials.  A storage area is to the right of the unit (behind the blue door) hides the remaining toys. The shelf to the left of the window is full of Sonlight materials and to the right is more audio programs and educational DVDs.  The TV is strictly to play DVDs and has no cable. More DVDs are in the cabinet below the TV. The futon is great for sleepovers and reading aloud. The white table is a converted train table turned end table.  Games are stored inside.

More books are housed on a display shelf by the futon. By the entrance door is my son's favorite place to be...with his Legos.

The rule is that he can keep as many creations out as fit on the blue rug. The rest have to be either in the drawers or on top of the unit. Most days Legos are all over the place, but come clean-up time we fall back on the "rug rule".

There are two really great storage areas in the room, which mostly hold items that aren't directly related to school. One is located by our Sonlight shelf and the other, which is much larger, right by the entrance door.  My son has created his own special reading area in the larger one.

I'm really happy with our space for school, though we don't always stay in there.  My son in particular likes to bring his work down to the kitchen table or whatever room I happen to be working in.  And on occasion my class of two gets rambunctious enough that I have to kick one of my students out to work at a desk in his or her room.  Even so, just having a space for all my homeschooling materials makes my day feel so much more organized and productive.

What I also like is that when friends come over, the kids tend to hang out in this room, playing Legos or games that are also stored in this area, along with some Playmobil and other toy items.  Occasionally dress-up items will get pulled out for younger kids or I'll find teenagers piled on the futon with popcorn and a movie.  Much like homeschooling is just a part of life, rather than something separate, this room is just as much for play and fellowship as it is for arithmetic and grammar.

Check out other school rooms at this week's Not Back to School Blog Hop!