Okay here are some pictures of our school room -- Let me just say that this is NOT where we school ALL day & it is not where I "teach." We school ALL over our house (inside & out).
This room has a little story behind it... Tim & I added on to our "ancient" house a couple years ago (the same time frame as deciding to homeschool). In the beginning he told me he was going to cut into the roof & this room was going to stretch over the kitchen & room next to the kitchen -- giving me a HUGE room. Well, because Tim did the addition himself he became a little, should we say, "afraid"? He decided NOT to cut into the roof (probably a good idea) -- which left me with a rather, SMALL room. With that said, beggars can't be choosers & I took what I got & was very appreciative; however we soon discovered that it was not possible for ALL of us to be in this room "doing school." So here is what I did . . . This became a "learning room" more than a school room. I put things in here that they could "learn" without me having to teach them, what I call "Centers" creative play, arts & crafts, dramatic play, music as well as visual learning tools (maps, timeline, scriptures, ect.). The kids do however, use this room for their independent study area to escape the babies & vise versa -- I use this room to take the babies too to get them out of other parts of the house, shall I say, "confine them!"
We just changed the layout of the room & I'm not sure if I like it or not? I looked for before pictures, but couldn't find any. The table & chairs are from IKEA -- CHEAP! The table can actually be 1/2 this size. The cubbies I got from a resale store. Each kid has a cubby & uses it to keep their workbooks in. Right now the toddlers don't have workbooks, so we are using 2 of them for our Math Center. In the corner you will see the CD player & musical play instruments, our music center. The easel is on it's last life -- it is the Melissa & Doug brand with a chalk board on the other side. I loved the idea of it, but I will be honest it didn't hold up well to my boys & it takes up a lot of space -- they love it though.
This is a wall I wish was much bigger. I really wanted a dry-erase board to teach on, but I had a hard time finding a reasonable on to fit the shape of the wall & cover the square Tim cut out (the one you see covered in cork board) WITHOUT consulting with me for "storage space." It would have been nice if the square were a size of a dry-erase board! -- Someday he will just customize me my own dry-erase board -- it's on my Honey Do List! Okay, the timeline we use is the Konos lines. We don't use the characters -- just the lines. The posters you see falling need to be replaced, but they are Colors & Shapes. The orange ABCD . . . across the wall was going to be a "Word Wall" for new vocabulary words, but we just haven't utilized this. Maybe someday or not . . . The bottom of the wall is chalk board paint. The kids love it! It smelled horrible as I painted & it was a mess, but the outcome was fantastic! The kids use this to "play school," write their spelling words, and for other small writing activities. It is great! The bins -- the top is categories of books (geography, science/nature magazines, preschool books/activities, & language books). The others are misc. toys, blocks, ect.
Here is the toddler desk! We have had this forever & I have no idea where it came from.
Here is their dramatic play/puppet stand. I found this at a garage sale for $5! The puppets are from everywhere. They have hand puppets & finger puppets ranging from boy/girl puppets, animals, pirates, & knights/princess. Our puppet shows are very funny. On the other side of this are the stairs (the chalk board wall extends over this) and I right scriptures & little notes from mom on this part of the wall for them to read as the go down the stairs.
We tried to utilize every part of this room as possible. We such a big family & such a small house, we have a bed in almost every part of the house -- why not here too? The kids don't sleep in here regularly -- more so when they have company over. They also use it a lot for a quiet reading spot. I have thought of making this a bedroom, but there isn't any "real" windows & only one way out so Tim is fearful of them being in here regularly while we are asleep incase of a fire. The maps -- the smaller ones are from Mardels & the big one is from Geography Matters. (the big one is supposed to hide another "storage" space of Tim's.)
This is the bed on the left. Tim made the headboards. This side we use for the kids to store all their dress up clothes. The bedding is from IKEA. Underneath is also painted with the chalk board paint (this side also has a couple layers of the magnetic paint too).
This is the other bed. As you can see another Honey Do task for Tim -- he ran out of paint on after the first headboard, so he just quit! We use this headboard to store games on one side & craft items on the other.
Lastly, I use the wall going down the stairs as our reading wall. I have book cutouts & write the title, author & genre for each book Taylor completes. We are going to add to this next year & have her add star stickers to rate the book. Tyler will start this more when he is reading more independently, but for now he uses the Hooked on Phonics charts. It is amazing how inspirational this is to them. It is a big deal to add to this wall. Above this is a "clothesline" I got from a teacher store (only so it would match -- it can easily be done). Here we display current art work or crafts.
That's all for this room. I will include more post of other areas we "school" in around the house soon.
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