We don’t have a dedicated homeschool classroom. We have 1600 square feet, four bedrooms, no basement, and eight people in our home. 300 square feet of this home is a hallway… That’s a tight fit!
Bookshelves in the Office
Since we don’t have a dedicated classroom, we maximize the space we do have. We study at the kitchen table, cuddle on the sofa for lessons, and store our materials in a school cabinet (four shelves with doors) that fits nicely in the kitchen.
My Beloved Printer/Copier — A Must Have!
We have a separate office full of bookshelves for our extra books and of course, the precious copier/printer.
The School Cabinet
I like to say that the world is our classroom. My children spend hours each day outside exploring with friends. We hike together as a family frequently, and enjoy tide pools, aquariums, museums and other field trips on a monthly basis. Our classroom doesn’t look anything like a real classroom, but don’t be fooled. Learning is taking place here every single day!
The Dining Room Table A.K.A. School Table
What does your classroom space look like?
Wow… Great to know we aren’t the only ones scrunched in! 🙂 You can seem my school room here: https://www.littlelearninglovies.com/wordpress/2012/08/02/how-to-school-without-a-school-room-2/ We school at our table (and all over the world 🙂 and keep our stuff in our ex-coat closet.
We could use more room, but I think I could learn something from you. We use the kitchen table and then have taken over the front hall closet for book storage. By May every year we can barely shut the door – each summer I declutter this closet and then start over again.
Looks like you make good use with the space you have. The “whole world” sure does provide great learning opportunities. Love that!
Love your dining area. I have considered going from chairs to benches.
For the contest: We are relaxed homeschoolers. Somewhat unschool..somewhat eclectic…with a dose of Charlotte Mason.
We used to school in our living room. We’d pull out a card table and do group schooling there, and I’d separate them into two school desks that we had in there, the kitchen table and a school desk that we put in our large master bathroom. That was the only place my severely ADHD son could go without any distractions, and he’d do SO much better in there and actually preferred it himself because he knew he’d finish a lot faster in there without any distractions. We are currently in the process of trying to sell our house, and we are living at my mothers until our house sells. Right now, we are just all over the house, my bedroom, the living room, the kitchen, and the kids’ bedrooms. I’m hoping to have a sunroom or some bright area to school in at our next house. We actually had a large basement room at our old house that we could have schooled in, but we all do so much better when we’re working in sunlight, and my living room and bathroom were really the only well-lit rooms in our whole house, so we sacrifice space for light. 🙂
By the way, we do actually do a LOT more out of the house than in the house. I tell people that we don’t actually home school, we roam school. 😉
My husband is the Pastor of a small church so we live in a 75 year old beautiful home located – yes you are reading this correctly – in the church parking lot. There are 7 in my family. We are blessed to have a room to have school in, but when I put in all the bookshelves there is no room for tables….so we have instruction that requires the white board they sit on the floor. When it is time for seat work they move to the dining room (which also has bookshelves).
We do a lot of schooling in thed world….For instance I split my grocery list givee an alotted budget and we all do the shopping…..if they come out under budget we eat out. We go to lots of parks and have home school in a bag….since we do unit studies and Charlotte Mason style we are flexible on location. Because of being in the ministry and home schooloers and because we read A LOT I have 5 six foot tall bookshelves and on 3 by 6 bookshelf in the dining room. I then have 4 6 foot tall home school book shelves and 3 equally big “library” bookshelves filled with kids books (the dining room is resource books, bibles, etc – we keep books for the use of our congregants and other home school families). I realize we are blessed with space and believe we should always be open to sharing. when we move most of it finds new homes and we start over. I have lots of manipulatives and games as I have kids withsensory issues, focus issues, and one with visual perception. Because I have resources And room to store them many families are able to benefit from it.
We have a 6 x 9 sunroom. It has two desk, that will soon be replaced with a Pinterest DIY project where the desk are actually hidged “boxes” attached to the wall. We have two book shelves loaded with books. I started hot glueing material around boxes to put on top of the shelves for easy store away, clean, and looks nice with all the bright colors. Then, I have three filing cabinets, one with a heavy used printer on it 🙂 , and a world globe on top of that. I got some poster frames, painted the background nature (is what my son likes), and turned it into our dry erase boards.
I’m not sure what ‘homeschool method’ we use. We have book shelves, desks, a couch, a carpet. We school wherever the day takes us! What a wonderful contest!
I would say we are pretty eclectic in our homeschooling. We don’t stick to any one style, but just do what works best for each subject area and each child. Our home is a 160+ year old house with lots of space. We do have a small room we call the school room but we just use it to store books and supplies that are not needed on a daily basis. Things we use every day are stored in the dining room in totes, cabinets, or bookshelves. Most of our schooling usually takes place at the dining room table. My youngest son also has quite a few specialists he goes to almost weekly that are 2 hours from home so my kids are also very used to doing school work in the vehicle and at doctor’s offices.
Ours is in our tiny dining room. we have book cases in there, too. We also have two bean bags and little book cases in our lounge where they read and play libraries.
I’d say we’re quite classical in homeschooling method mixed in with some unschooling – does this make us eclectic? lol
We moved from the Midwest to California and didn’t bring very much with us. I remember my four bookshelves crammed with books and miss them. All I have right now is a large crate with our math, grammar, and history books. Everything else we borrow from the library or get online.
Oh I LOVE the bookshelves in your office!! You just can never have enough bookshelves. lol
We use benches at the kitchen table to. It saves a lot of space.
love those bookshelves!!! Our method is very eclectic but one thing that stays the same – God at the center of it all!
We don’t have a particular homeschool method, yet. I’ve dabbled a bit with some homeschooling in the past year, but this will be our first real year. I’m kind of flying by the seat of my pants and reading, reading, reading to get ideas.
We are eclectic with Charlotte Mason tendencies…
I recently had a shift in my homeschool room. I moved the boys to dedicated desks in their own rooms and moved in my daughter by cutting down the desk to 5yo size and covering the blue with pink paint, chosen by her. Out with the times-tables poster and in with the Alphabet!
With the olders, we have always been classical, but with the little girl we are moving to a Biblical/Principle Approach type of classical. I get tired of trying to edit out the questionable material, so I thought I’d start with materials that already have it edited.
Our china cabinet still holds the good dishes, but they are completely buried in our materials for homeschool: books, folders, lapbook kits, art supplies, items to keep my 2 year old occupied while schooling my middle schooler. You name it, it’s in there! I always hope to get better organized, but it just doesn’t seem to happen. At least the doors still close :)!
The curriculum that made the cut this year includes Saxon Math for all children, Story of the World, Apologia Science for our new highschooler, Robotics for science for one, Jeanie Fulbright’s Zoology 3 for one, and more. We use an eclectic mix.
This year I am excited about trying Mystery of History 1. This is new to us. I am also trying the Right Brain Phonics Program for my 7yob who has had a very difficult time learning to read. God bless you.
lapbooks, since I purchased ink at a really great price.
We have a very small apt. But my girls really enjoy learning. We use the couch, a card table, kitchen table, or outside. All books and all of the office areas are squished in the master bedroom and in the dining room areas. Any area with any space has more books stashed in them. And I know we have more tubs and boxes full of books in storage we keep trying to find places for. We LOVE to read!
This is exciting to possibly learn more and have different ways of teaching them.
Thanks!