How We Homeschool: The Schoolroom

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 ( a post that was written but never completed)

All during Christmas break I kept telling myself I would have time to rearrange and reorganize our schoolroom before it was time to return to business as usual. Pure delusion, what with regular daily life PLUS the Christmas holiday PLUS needing to devote time and energy to emptying and cleaning two houses that needed to be sold.

We resumed lessons on Tuesday, but before anyone else got moving, I tore into the schoolroom with gusto. After nearly two hours, I was satisfied. The biggest issue was that Regina kept getting into the cabinet where all the paper is stored, leaving the slippery floor littered with sheets and sheets of looseleaf, printer paper, and cardstock. Dangerous, wasteful AND annoying. I had to make that cabinet less accessible to her while still accessible to us.

I feel so blessed to have a dedicated schoolroom.  Our old house was much smaller; all the work was done at the dining room table, and I gave up a much-needed coat closet to store books and supplies.  Our current house has a bedroom on the second floor that's known as a walk-thru - you have to pass through it to continue on to the third floor.  Since nobody wants such a semi-private bedroom, we turned it into the schoolroom.

Here's where most of the schoolwork takes place. I love how the room is flooded with sunlight all morning and afternoon.

The large maps on the wall are where we play nerf dart geography.

The other half of the room. The paper cabinet is now in the corner, where I can restrict access with my chair. The copier and laptop sit atop the cabinet. The laptop is falling apart by degrees, it's no longer technically "portable."  We use it in the schoolroom now for educational videos and websites, as well as blogging.  I can blog on the tablet, but it's so much faster to type with two hands.

There are two smaller work surfaces by the window for me to banish allow a child or two to work independently, or gives them a place to color and cut while we're using the big table.


This corner closet is largely a catch-all, but I do keep art supplies and my sewing machine in the bottom.  The higher shelves are the place where I put things I don't want anyone to touch without permission.

The other corner bookshelf, behind the door, is where I keep all the books that are in current rotation.  Each kid has half a shelf where their books are stacked, and they are required to  put their books back on the shelves when they are finished.  There are also several books and resources that I want to use soon, so I keep them here in plain view so I don't forget all about them.  That happens all the time occasionally, you know.

The back of the door has a shoe organizer that I use to hold a little bit of everything - envelopes, extra glue sticks, things that need to be kept out of reach, like sharpies and post-its.